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POLITICAL RECORD OF 

STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 

•-♦-• . 

A TRACT ISSUED BY THE 

ILLINOIS REPUBLICAN STATE CENTRAL COMMITTEE, 



corrocEira'a^s. 



PART I., 



ANTI-SLAVERY. | PART II., 

PART III., MISCELLANEOUS. 



PRO-SLAVERY. 



PART L— ANTI-SLAVERY. 



MR. DOrGLAS ENDEAVORS TO PROHIBIT SLAVERY 
IN " STATES." 

On the 2.5 til day of January, 184.5, the 
Hon. Stephen A. Douglas, a member of the 
House of RepresentKtives fiom Illinois, in- 
troduced the following amendment to the 
joint resolution for the annexation of Texas, 
which had been presented by Mr. Brown, of 
Tennessee : 

" And in such State or Siates as may be formed out 
of said territory north of said Missouri Compromise 
line, slavery or involuntary servitude — except for 
crime — shall be proliibited." 

The record of this action is found in the 
Congresfiional Globe, Vol. XIV, (2d session, 
28th Congress,) page 193. The amendment 
became a part of the law for annexing Texas, 
and will be found on page 798 of the JJ. S. 
Statutes at Large, for 1836-1845. Let it be 
observed, that while Thomas Jefferson and 
the fathers of the Republic proposed to pro- 
hibit slavery in Territories only, and while the 
Republican party of to-day propose no more 
and no less, Stephen A. Douglas sought, in 
1845, to prohibit it in States, even though the 
people wanted it ! 



HE REGARDS THE MISSOURI COMPROillSE AS A 
" SACRED THING." 

On the 23d of October, 1849, Mr. Douglas 
made a speech at Springfield, Illinois, which 
was published in the State Register of Nov. 
8th, in which he used the following remark- 
able language : 

" The Missouri Compromise has an origin akin, to that 
of the Constitution of the United States, conceived in 
the same spirit of fraternal alfection, and calculated to 
remove forever the danger which seemed to threaten, 
at some d'stant day, to sever the social bond of union. 
All the evidences of public opinion, at that day, seemed 
to indicate that this Compromise had became canonized 
in the hearts of the American people as a sacred thing, 
which no ruthless hand would ever be reckless enough 
to disturb." ' 



HE AWARDS THE GLORY OF THE MISSOURI 
COMPROMISE TO HENRY CLAY. 

In the same speech, and in the same con- 
text, he continued as follows: 

" The Missouri Compromise had then been in prac- 
tical operation for about a quarter of a century, and 
had received the saction and approbation of men of all 
parties, in every section of the Union. It had allayed 
all sectional jealousies and irritations, growing out of 
this vexed question, and harmonized and tranquilized 
the whole country. It had given to Henry Clay, as its 
prominent champion, the proud soubriquet of the 
'Great Pacificator,^ and by that title, and for that 
service, his political friends had repeatedly appealed to 
the people to rally under his standard, as a presidential 
cand date, as the man who had exhibited the patiotism, 
and the power to suppress an unholy and treasonable 
agitation, and preserve the Union. He (Mr. Douglas) was 
not aware that any man or any party, from any sec- 
tion of the Uni..n, l:ad ever urged as an obj. ction to 
Mr. Clay, that he was a Great Champion of the Missouri 
Compromise. On the contrary, the effort was made by . 
the opponents of Mr. Clay, to prove that he was not 
entitled to the exclusive merit of that great patriotic 
measure, and that the honor was equally due to others 
as well as him, for securing its adoption. 

"He, (Mr. Douglas) in connection with the entire 
delegation from Illinois, and according to his recollec- 
tion, in company with nearly all the members from the 
Northern States, and some forty odd members from the 
Slave States, voted for the Oregon bill, containing a 
prohibition of slavery in that Territory, leaving the 
people to regulate their own domestic institutions under 
the Constitution when they should become a State. 
This triumphant vote, uniting both Northern and South- 
ern members in favor of the Oregon bill, was a matter 
of no practical importance so far as the existence of 
the institution of slavery in that country was concerned, 
and is only referred to now, for the purpose of showing 
that at that day, the Constitutional right of Congress to 
legislate upon the subject of slavery in the Territories, 

WAS NOT VIRTUALLY RESISTED, IF, INDBBD, IT WAS SE- 
BIOCSLT QUESTIONED." 



HE BELIEVES IT IS NOT UNJUST TO THE SOUTH 
TO EXCLUDE SLAVERY. 

On the 13th day of March. 1850, Mr. Doug- 
las made a speech in the Senate, defending 
the " sacred thing," from which the following 
is an average extract : 



" The next in the series of aggressions complained of 
by the Seuator from South Ciirolina, is the Missouri 
Compromise. The Missouri Compromise, an act of 
Northern injustice, designed to deprive the South of 
her due share of the Territories ! Why, sir, it was 
only on this very day that the Senator from Mississippi 
despaired of any peaceahle adjustment of exi^ti»g flif- 
iiculties, because the Missouri Compromise line could 
not be extended to the Pacific. That measure was 
originally adopted in the bill for the admission of Mis- 
souri by the union of Northern and Southern votes. 
The South has always professed to be willing to abide 
by it, and even to continue it, as a fair and honorable 
adjustmentof a vexed and difficult question. In 1S45 
it was adnp'ed in the resolutions for tlie annexation of 
Texas, by Southern as well as Northern votes, without 
the slightest complaint that it was unfair to any section 
Of the country. In 1846 it received the support of 
every Southern member of the House of Representa- 
tives—Whig and Democrat— without exception, as an 
alternative measure to the Wilmot Proviso. And again in 
1848, as an amendment to the Oregon bill, on my mo- 
Hon, it received the vote, if I recollect right-- and I do 
not think that I can possibly be mistaken — of every 
Southern Senator, AVhig and Democrat, even including 
the Senator from South Carolina liimself, (Mr. Cal- 
houn.) And yet we are now told that this is only 
'second to the Ordinance of 1787 in the series of aggres- 
sions on the South." — Conff. Globe, Appendix, vol. 
22, parti, page 370. 

" The Territories belong to the United States as one 
people, one nation, and are to be disposed of for the 
common benefit of all, according to the principles of 
the Constitution. Ench State, as a member of the Con- 
federai'y, has a right to a voice in forming the rules and 
regulations for the government of the Territories; but 
the different sections — North, South, East and West — 
have no such right. It is no violation of Scuthbrn 
BIGHTS TO PROHIBIT Slavbrt." — Cong, Globe, Appen- 
dias, vol. 2,1, part 1, page 369. 



HE ADVOCATES THE "IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT" 
AND THE CLTIMATE EXTINCTION OF SLAVERY ! 

On the same day, and in the same speech, 
Mr. DougJas continued in the following sur- 
prising strain — surprising, if we reflect in 
whose mouth the sentimenis are found : 

" I have already had occasion to remark, that at the 
time of the adoption of the Constitution, there were 
twelve (slave States) and six of them have since abol- 
ished slavery. This fact shows that the cause of free- 
dom has steadily and firmly advanced, while slavery 
has receded in the same ratio. We all look forward 
with confidence to the time when Delaware, Maryland, 
Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri, and probably North 
Carolina and Tennessee, u-iU adopt one gradual sys- 
tem of emunfipaiion, under the operation of which, 
those States must, in process of time become free." 

And again, on the same page, speaking of a 
proposition to amend the Constitution so as to 
preserve an " equilibrium " in point of num- 
bers between free and slave States, he says: 

"Then, sir, the proposition of the Senator from 
South Carolina is entii-ely impracticable. It is also in- 
admissible, if practicable. It would levolutionize the 
fundamental principle of the Government. It would 
desti-oy the great principle of popular equality which 
must n cessarily form the basis of all free institutions. 
Jt would be a retrograde movemen t in an age of pro- 
gress, tliat would aHtonish theworld. — Congressional 
Globe, Appendix, vol. 22, part l,pag6 §71. 



and contrary to the principles of sound public 
policy," among which he enumerated property 
in slaves. He s.iid: 

"But you say that we propose to prohibit by law 
your emigrating to the Territories with your property. 
Wb pkoposb no such thing. We recognize your right, 
in common with our own, to emigrate to the Territories 
with your property, and there to hold and enjoy it in 
subordination to the laws you may find in force in the 
country. These laws, in some resjjects, differ from our 
own, as the laws of the various States of this Union vary 
on some points from the laws of each other. Some 
species of property are exclvded by law in moat of 
the States as well as Territories, as being unwise, 
ij/imoral, OR CONTRARY TO THE PRINCIPLES 
OF SOUND PUBLIC POLICY. For instance, the 
banter is prohibited from emigrating to Minnesota, Ore- 
gon or California with his bank. The bank may be 
property by the laws of New York, but ceases to be so 
when taken into a State or Territory where banking is 
prohibited by the local law. So, ardent spirits, whisky, 
brandy, and all the intoxicating drinks, are recognized 
and considered as property in most of the States, if not 
all of them ; but no citizen, whether from the North or 
South, can take this species of property with him, and 
hold. Sell or use at his jjleasure, iu all the Territories, 
because it is prohibited by the local law — in Oregon by 
the statutes of the Territory, and in the Indian country 
by the acts of Congress. NOR CAN A MAN 60 
THLRE AND TAKE AND BOLD HIS SLAVE, FOR 
THE SAME REASON. These laws, and many others 
involving similar principles, are di) evted against no 
section, AND IMPAIR THE RIGHTS OF NO STATE 
OF THE UNION. They are laws against the intro- 
duction, sale and use of specific kinds of property, 
whether brought from the North or the South, or from 
foreign countries." — Cong. Globe, Appendix, vol. 22, 
j)art 1, page 871. 

And again: 

" But, sir, I do not hold the doctrine that to exclude 
any species of property by law from any Territory, is a 
violation of any right to property. Do you not exclude 
banks from most of the Territories? Do you not ex- 
clude whisky from being introduced into large portions 
of the Territory of the United States ? Do you not ex- 
clude gambling tables, which are properly recognized 
as such in the Stales where they ar« tolerated? And 
has any one contended that the exclusion of gambling 
tables, and the exclusion of ardent spirits was a violation 
of any consiitutional privilege or right? And yet it is 
the case in a large portion of the territory of the United 
States; but there is no outcry against that, because it 
is the prohibition of a specific kind of property, and not 
a prohibition against any section of the Uniun. Why, 
sir, our laws now prevent a tavern-keeper from going |' 
into some of the territories of the United States and ■ 
tiiking a bar with him, and using and selling spirits 'J' 
there. The law also prohibits certain other descriptions 
of business from being carried on in the Territories. 
I am not, therefore, prepared to say that, under the Con- 
stitution, «■«? have not the power to paoBlaws exclud- 
ing Negro slavery from the Ter7'ituries. It involvbs 
THE SAME PRINCIPLES." — Speech of Senator Douglas, 
June Bd, 1850, pages 1115 and 1116, vol. 21, Cong. 
Globe, 1849-50. 



HE BELIEVES THAT CONGRESS MAY RIGHTFULLY 
EXCLUDE SLAVES, BANKS OR ARDENT SPIRITS 
FKOJI THE TERRITORIES. 

On the 13th of March, 1850, in the speech 
already quoted from, Mr. Douglas distinctly 
assertt d the light of Congress to prohibit the 
introduction of certiin species of property in 
the Territories, as being "unwise, immoral 



HE BELIEVES IT IS CONSTITUTIONAL TO PROHIBIT 
SLAVERY IN THE TEURITORIES. 

On the same day, and in the same speech, 
Mr. Douglas referred to the Wilmot Proviso 
resolutions, passed by the Illinois Legislatuie, 
thus : 

" My hands are tied upon one isolated point. 

" A Senator — Can you not break loose ? 

"Mr. Dooglas— / A«fe no desire to break loose. 
My opinions are my own, and I cypress them freely. 
My votes belong to those who sent me here, and to 
whom I am responsible. I have never differed with my 
constituency during seven years service in C'^'iigi'ess, 
except upon one solitary question. AND EVEN ON 
THAT I HAVE NO C0'Nj;TITUT10NAL DIFFICUL- 
TIES, and have previously twice given the same vote. 



GjSI^ I 



^ 'Z- 



UTider peculiar cnxumstaTices ; which is now required 
at my hands. / have, no desire, therefore, to break 
loofie from the instniction." - [Cotii/ressional Globe, 
Appendix, vol. 22, part 1, page 3T3.] 



THE RESOLUTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS LEGISLATURE. 

This is perhaps an appropriate place to in- 
troduce the VVilmot Proviso resolutions cf 
the Ilh'nois Legislature of 1S49. They were 
adopted by the Senate on the 8th of January, 
in that year, and by the House on the 9th, in 
the following words, and by the annexed 
vote : 

" Renolved, by the Senate of the State of IlUnois, 
the Hou^e of Representatives concurring. That our 
Senators in Congress be instructed, and our Represen- 
tatives requested, to use all honorable means in their 
power to procure the enactment of such laws by Con- 
gress for the government of the countries and territo- 
ries of the United States acquired by the treaty of 
peace, friendship, limits, and settlement with the Re- 
public of Mexico, concluded February 2d, ISiS, as 
shall contain the express declaration '■that there shall 
he neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in said 
territories, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes 
whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.' 

"■ResnlBed hy the House of Represeiitatives, the 
Senate concurring herein, That the G-overnor be re- 
spectfully requested to transmit to each of our Senators 
and Representatives in Congress, a copy of the joint 
resolution of the Senate, concurred in by the House on 
the 9th inst., for the exclusion of slavery from the new 
territories acquired by our late treaty with the Repub- 
lic of Mexico." 

IN THE SENATE. 

Yhas — Messrs. Ames, Denny, Gear, Gillespie, 
Grass, Judd, Mattesop, (Joel A.) Morrison. {J. L.D.) 
McRoberts, Patterson, Plato, Reddick, Smith, Stuart. 
—14. 

Nats — Messrs. Cloud, Davis, Hardy, Markley, 
Odam, Osborn, Richmond, Rountree, Sutphin, Tichen- 
or, Witt— 11. 

IN THE HOUSE. 

Yeas — Messrs. Abend, Austin, Makeman, Brady, 
Brown, Crandell, Crawford, Denio, Edwards, 
JEwing, Fay, Gilson, Gray, Uarding, Harrison, Hen- 
derson, Keating, Keener, Kellogg, Lasher, Leach, 
lAnder, Little, Maxwell, Pickering, Rives, Runkle, 
Ryan, Sanger, Sconce, Slierman, Smith, Stjirkweather, 
Thomas, Tutnhidl, Waller, Wheaton, Yates — 3S. 

Nays— Messrs. Blackman, Bradley, Bridges, Bond, 
Campbell, Cooper, Cochran, Darneille, Darnell, Dear- 
born, Evey, Fry, Guthrie, Hayes, Jennings, Lucas, 
Jlerrett, Morris, McDonald, Olds, Page, Pattison, 
Price, Rice, Richardson, Sayre, Skinner, Sloan, Tack- 
erberry, Tyler, Vernor, Walker, Wilson, Mr. Speaker, 
(Zadock Casey)— 34. 

[Whigs in Italics — Democrats in Roman.] 



MR. DOUGLAS RESPONDS TO THE RESOLUTIONS. 

On the 23d of October, 1849, Mr. Douglas 
made a speech in Springfield, 111., (referred to 
above,) which was published in the State Reg- 
ister of Nov. 8th, 1849. Iq this speech, he 
referred to the resolutions of instructions 
passed by the Legislature, in the following 
language : 

" In August, '4S, he (Mr. Douglas) had voted for the 
Oregon bi 1, containing a clause prohibiting slavery in 
that Territory. About four months atterwards, the 
Legislature assembled and prepared a resolution in- 
structing our Senators, and requesting our Representa- 
tives in Congress to vote for territorial bills in Califor- 
nia and New Mexico, containing a prohibition of slav- 
ery in those Teriitories. In o{her viorA->, they iji-str act- 
ed hint to do precsely what he had just donewithout 
inJitructions. He had been informed that his Whig 
friends, and perhaps a few others, peculiarly situated. 



confidently expected him to resipn, ratter than obey 
those instructions. It would be disagreeable to disap - 
point them in so reasonable an expectation. It was a 
serious question, however, requiring grave and delib- 
erate consideration, whether he could conscienciously 
do under instructions what he had jcst done from 

THE DICTATES OF HIS JDDOEMBNT WITHOUT INSTROCTIONS. 

As the decision of so important a question requires 
time to consider, he invited them to wait and see." 

If it be denied that Mr. Douglas ever utter- 
ed these " Abolition " sentiments, a copy of 
the Register containing them, rany be found 
on file, in one of the public offices at Spring- 
field, another at Jacksonville, and perhaps 
others in other parts of the State, though it 
is true, that several tiles of the paper con- 
taining Mr. Douglas' speech of Oct. 23d, 1849, 
were quite mysteriously mutilated or de- 
stroyed in 1854, after the repeal of the Mis- 
souri Compromise. 



HE THOUGHT THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE SHOULD 
HAVE BEEN EXTENDED TO THE PACIFIC. 

The bill for the admission of California 
being under debate, Mr. Turney (ofTenn.) 
moved to amend the same by extending the 
Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific Ocean, 
saying his amendment was a verbatim copy 
of Douglas' amendment to the Oregon Bill. 
Mr. Douglas, on the 6th day of August; 1850, 
said : 

' ' As reference has been made to me as the author of 
a similar amendment, in 1848, to the Oregon Bill, I de- 
sire only to state that I was then willing to adjust the 
whole slavery question on that line and those terms ; 
and if the lohole acquired territory was now in the 
same condition as it teas then, I WOULD NOW 
VOTE FOR IT. AND SHOULD BE GLAD TO SEE IT 
ADOPTED. But since then California has increased 
her population, has a State government organized, and 
I cannot consent, for one, to destroy that State govern- 
ment and send all back, or that such a line as this 
shall form her southern boundary. For that reason, 
AND TH.\T ALONE, I shall vote against the amend- 
ment."— 6\>M^. Globe, Appendix, vol. 22, part 2, • 
p>age 1510. 



HE RESOLVES NEVER TO MAKE ANOTHER SPEECH 
ON THE SLAtERY QUESTION ! 

In Senate, December 23d, 1851, on a reso- 
lution declaring the Compromise measures a 
^' finality," Mr. Douglas said : 

" At the close of the long session which adopted 
those measures, I re.vd'ved NEVER to tnake another 
speech upon the slavery question in thehalls of Con- 
gress. ****** 

'' In taking leave of this subject, I wish to state that 
I have determined NEVER to nmke another speech 
upon the slavery que.stion ; and J will now add the 
hope that the necessity for it will never emst. lam 
heartily tired of the controversy, and I know that the 
country is disgusted with it. In regard to the resolu- 
tions of the Senator fi-om Mississippi, (Mr. Foote,) I 
will be pardoned for saying that I much doubt the wis- 
dom and expediency of their introduction. * * * 

" So long as our opponents do not agitate for repeal 
or modifioation, why should we agitate for ant pdr- 
POSB ? We claim that the Compromise is a final settle- 
ment open to discussion, and agitation, and controver- 
sy, by its friends. What manner of settlement is that 
which does not settle the difficulty and quiet the dis- 
pute ? Are not the friends of the Compromise becom- 
ing the agitators, and will not the country hold us re- 
sponsible for that which we condemn and denounce in 
the Abolitionists and Free-soilerg ? These are matters 
worthy of consideration. Those who preach peace 
should not be the first to commence and re-open an old 
quarrel."— dwHC. Globe, Appendix, 1851-2, pages 
lab and ^, 



SLATERT IN NEW MEXICO. 

For the purpose of contrasting the views 
uttered by Mr. DougJas in the Senate, on the 
12th day of February, 1850, on the subject of 
slavery in the territory of New Mexico, *ith 
his remarks on the 16th of May. 1860, (here- 
after quoted,) we copy the following from the 
Congressional Globe, vol. 22, part 1, page 343 ; 

" Mr. DocGi-AS. — If the question is controverted 
here, I am ready to enter into the discussion of that 
question at any time, upon a reasonable notice, and to 
show that by the constituted authority and consti- 
tutional authority of Mexico, slavery was prohibited in 
Mexico at the time of the acquisition, and that prohibi- 
tion was acquired by us with the soil, and that when we 
acquired the territory, we acquired it with that at- 
tached to it — that covenant running with the soil— and 
that must continue, unless removed fy competent au- 
thority. And because there was a prohibition thus at- 
tached to the soil, 1 have always thought it was an un- 
wise, unnecessary, and unjustifiable course on the part 
of the people of the free States, to require Congress to 
put another prohibition on the top of that one Jt has 
been the strongest argument that I have ever urged 
against the prohibition of slavery in the Territoriei, 
that it was not necsasaryfor the accomplislmient of 
their object." 

THE THREE NEBRASKA BILLS. 

No. 1. 

On the 17th day of February, A. D. 1853, 
Senator Douglas, as Chairman of the Com- 
mittee on Tenitories, reported to the Senate 
his first " Act to Organize the Territory of 
Nebraska." This act contained no repeal of 
the Missouri Compromise, and it failed to be- 
come a law for want of time. Senator Atchi- 
son, of Missouri, on the 3d day of March, 1853, 
made some remarks on this bill, in which he 
acknowledged that he had no hope of ever 
seeing the Missouri Compromise repealed. He 
said : 

" I had two objections to this bill. One was, that 
the Indian title to that Territory had not been extin- 
guished, or at least but a very small portion of it had 
been. Another was the Missouri Compromise, or, as 
it is commonly called, the Slavery Restriction. It was 
my opinion at that time, — and I am not now very clear 
on that subject, — that the law of Congress, when the 
State of Missouri was admitted i.ito the Union, exclud- 
ing slavery from the Territory of Louisiana north of 36 
deg. 30 min., would be enforced in that Territory unless 
It was specially rescinded ; and whether that law was 
in accordance with the Constitution uf the United States 
or not, it would do its worlv, and that work would be 
to preclude slaveholders from going into that Territory. 
But when I came to look into that question, I found 
that there was no prospect, no hope, of a repeal of 
the MviSouri Compromise excluding Slavery from 
that Territory. Now, sir, I am free to admit that at 
this moment, at this hour, and for all time to come, I 
should oppose the organization or the settlement of that 
Territory, unless my constituents and the constituents 
of the whole South, of the slave States of the Union, 
could go into it upon ttie same footing, with equal rights 
and equal privileges, carrying th t species of property 
with them as other people of this Union. Yes, sir, I 
acknewledge that that would have governed me, hut I 
have no hope that the restriction will ever be re- 



' I have always been of opinion tliat the first great 
error committed, in the political history of this country, 
was the Ordinance of 1787, rendering the Northwest 
Territory free ttrritory. The next great error was the 
Missouri Compromise. But they are both irremedi- 
able. There is no remedy Jor them. We must sub- 
mit to them,. I am preparedto do it. It is evident 

THAT THK MISSOURI CoMPROMlSB CANNOT BBBEPKALKD. 

So far as that question is concerned, we might as well 
agree to the admission of this Territory now as next 
year, or five or ten years hence." — \(J<mg, Globe, Ses: 
Hon 1852-458, page 1113. 



No. 2. 

On the 4th day of January, 1854, Mr. 
Dougla", as Chairman of the Committee on 
Territories, reported to the Senate his second 
bill for the organization of Nebraska. The 
bill was accompanied by a report, from which 
the following is an extract: 

" Your Committee do not feel themselves called upon 
to enter into the discussion of these controverted ques- 
tions. They involve the same grave issues which pro- 
duced the agination, tlie sectional strife and the fearful 
struggle of 1850. As Congress deemed it wise and 
prudent to refrain from deciding the matters in contro- 
versy then, either by affirming or repealing the Mexican 
laws, or by an act declaratoiy of the true intent of the 
Constitution and the extent of the protection aff'irded 
by it to slave propetry in the Territories, so YOUR 
COMMITTEE ARE KOT PREPARED NO W TO 
RECOMMEND A DEPARTURE from the course 
pursued on that memorable occasion, EITHER BY 
AFFIRMING OR REPEALING THE EIGHTH 
SECTION OF THE MISSOURI ACT, or by any 
Act declaratory of the meaning of the Constitution in 
respect to the legal points of dispute." 

Senator Dixon, of Kentucky, immediately 
introduced an amendment to the bill, declar- 
ing the Missouri Compromise null and void. 
Senator Atchison, of Missouri, then the pre- 
siding officer of the Senate, threatened Mr. 
Douglas with a displacement from his position 
as Chairman of the Committee on Territories, 
unless he should accept Mr. Dixon's amend- 
ment. Mr. Atchison tells the whole story in 
a speech delivered at Atchison City, Kansas, 
on the 10th day of September, 1854, reported 
as follows in the Parkville Luminary: 

"He [Atchison] thought the Missouri Compromise 
ought to be repealed ; he had pledged himself in his 
public addresses to vote for no territorial organization 
that would not virtually annul it ; and with this feeling 
in his heart, he desired to be the chairman of the Senate 
Committee on Territories when a bill was introduced. 

" With this object in view, he had a private interview 
with Mr. Douglas, and informed him of what he desired 
— the introduction of a bill for Nebraska like what he 
had promised to vote for, and that he would like to be 
Chairman of the Committee on Territories, in order to 
introduce such a measure ; and if he could get that 
position, he would immediately resign as President of 
the Senate. Judge Douglas requested twenty-four hours 
to consider the matter, and if, at the expiration of that 
time, he could not introduce such a bill as he [Mr. Atch- 
ison] proposed; which would, at the same time, accord 
with his own sense of justice to the South, he would 
resign as Chairman of the Territorial Committee in 
Democratic caucus, and exert his influence to get him 
[Atchison] appointed. At the expiration of the given 
time. Senator Douglas signified his intention to intro- 
duce such a bill as had been spoken of." 

No. 3. 

Whether Atchison told the truth or not, it 
is a fact that on the 23d day of January, 1854, 
nineteen days after he was "not prt pared to 
recommend a departure" from the Missouri- 
prohibition, Mr. Douglas brought in a new 
bill, dividing Nebraska into two Territories — 
Kansas and Nebraska — and repealing the 
Missouri Compromise in the following terms: 

"That the Constitution, and all the laws of the 
United States which are not locally inapplicable, shall 
have the same force and effect within the said Ti-rritory 
of Nebraska (and Kansas) as elsewhere within the 
United States, except the eighth section of the act 
preparatory to the admission of Missouii into the 
Union, approved March sixth, eighteen hundred and 
twenty, which BEING INCONSISTENT V> ITH THE 
PRINCIPLE OF NON-INTERVENTION BY CON- 
GRESS WITH SLAVERY IN THE STATES AND 
TERRITORIES, AS RECOGNIZED BY THE LEG- 
ISLATION OF 1850, commonly called the Compromise 
Measures, is hereby declared inoperative and void." 



^-Sa 



PART II.— PRO-SLAVEET. 



The introduction of the third Nebraska bill, 
repealing the Missouri Compromise, constitutes 
the turning point in Mr. Douglas' political 
highway. From this sharp corner, his course 
is wholly and utterly pro-slavery, down to the 
introduction of the Lecomp'on bill in the 
Senate, where he takes a position of indiffer- 
ence, best expressed in his phrase, " Don't 
care whether slavery is voted down or voted 
up." The indifferent mood is preserved a 
little more than two years, when, as will be 
seen by the record, he becomes more wrath- 
fully pro-slavery than ever before. 



HE VOTES DOWN "POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY-." 

The true intent and meaning of the Ne- 
braska bill was declared to be " not to legis- 
late slavery into any Territory or State, nor 
to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the peo- 
ple perfectly free to form and regulate their 
own domestic institutions in their own way, 
subject only to the Constitution of the United 
States." This was the "stump speech in the 
belly of the bill," as Mr. Benton justly char- 
acterized it. On the loth of February, 1854, 
Senator Chase offered an amendment to the 
bill, in order to allow the people to exclude 
slavery while in a Territorial condition, if 
they wanted to. The amendment was as 
follows : 

'' Mr. Ch*sb. — I desire to submit an amendment — 
to insert imniediately after the words, ' subject to tlie 
Constitution of the United States,' the following ; 

" ' Under wVncii tlie people of the Territory, through 
tlieir appropriate representatives, may, if they see 
fit, PROHIBIT THE EXISTKNCE OF SLAVERY 
THERKIN.'"— Cons'. Glohe,, 1854, partX, page i21. 

After considerable discu'«sion a vote was 
taken, on the 2d of March following, and the 
amendment was rejected by — yeas, 10; nays, 
30 — DOUGLAS voting in the negative. Thus 
it appeared that the people were not left per- 
fectly free to exclude slavery, according to Mr. 
Douglas' understanding of his own bill. 



HE DOES IT AGAIN. 

On the 2d of July, 1856, Senator Trumbull 
offered the following amendment to the bill 
for the admission of Knisas, commonly known 
as the "Toombs Bill": 

" And be it further enacted. That the provision of the 
' Act to organize the Territories of Nebraslia and Kan- 
sas,' which declares it to be the 'true intent and mean- 
ing' of said act ' not to legislate slavery into any Ter- 
ritory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to 
leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regu- 
late their domestic institutions in their own way, sub- 
ject only to the Constiluti n of the United States,' 
was intrnded to and does confer upon or leave to the 
people of Kansas full power, at any time, through its 
Territorial Legislature, to exclude .'■lavery from said 
Territory, or to recognize and regulate it therein." 

The vote stood— yeas 11, nays 34. DOUG 
LAS voting in the negative. The amendment 
may be found on page 7^6, and the vote on 
page 199 of the Appendix to the Congressional 
Globe, 1855-56. 



HE SATS IT IS A QUESTION FOR THE SUPREME 
COURT. 

On this occasion, (to wit, on the 2d of July, 
1856,) Mr. Douglas used the following lan- 
guage in discussing the amendment : 

" My opinion in regard to the question which my 
colleague is trying to raise here, has been well known 
to the Senate for years. It has been repeated over 
and over again. He tried, the other day, as those as- 
sociated with him on the stump used to do two years ago 
and last year, to ascertain what were my opinions on this 
point in the Nebraska bill. I TOLD THEM IT WAS A 
JUDICIAL QUESTION'. My answer then was, and now 
is, that IF THE CONSTITUTION CARRIES SLAVERY 
THERR, LET IT GO, AND NO POWER ON EARTH 
CAN TAKE IT AWAY; but if the Constitution does 
not carry it there, no power but the people can carry it 
there Whatever may be the true decision of that con- 
stitutional point, it would not have affected my vote for 
or against the Nebrasiia bill. I should /uive supported 
it as readily if I thought the decifsUni would be one 
way as the other. If my colleague will examine my 
speeches, he will find that declaration. He will also 
find that I stated I would not discuss the LEGAL 
QUESTION, for that by the bill we referred it to the 
Courts." — Appendix to Cong. Globe, page 797. 

And again on the same day, in reply to Mr. 
Trumbull, he said : 

" I say I am willing to leave it to the Supreme Court 
of the United States, because the Constitution intrusted 
it there." — Appendix to Cong. Globe, 1856-G, page 
79T. 



WHAT THE SUPREME COURT DECIDED. 

This is a proper place to give the decision 
of the Supreme Court on the question of 
slavery in the Territories, and the right of 
Territorial Legislatures to exclude it. It will 
be found on pages 450 and 451, vol. 19, How- 
ard's Reports, (Died Scott vx. John F. A. San- 
ford.) where, after deciding that Congress had 
no power to prohib tslaveiy in a Territory, the 
Court proceeded as follows: 

" The powers over person and property of which we 
speak are not oidy not granted to Congress, but are in 
express terms denied, and they are forbidden to exer- 
cise them. And this proliibition is not confined to the 
States, but the words are general, and extend to the 
whole territory over which the Constitution gives it 
power to legislate, including those portions of it re- 
maining under Territorial Government, as well as that 
covered by States. It is a total absence of power eve- 
rywhere within the dominion of the United States, and 
places the citizens of a Territory, so far as these rights 
are concerned, on the same footing with citizens of the 
States, and gunrds them as firmly and plainly against 
any inroads which the General Government might at- 
tempt, under the plea of implied or incidental powers. 
And if Congress itself cannot do this— if it is beyond 
the powers conferred on the Federal Government — it 
will be admitted, we presume, that it could not 
authorize a Territorial Government to exercise them. 
It could confer vo power on any local government 
established by its authority, to violate the provi»l(yn& 
of the CoH'ttitution. 

" It seems, however, to be supposed that there is a 
difference between property in a slave and other prop- 
erty, and that different rules may be applied to it in 
expounding the Constitution of the United States. 
And the laws and usages of nations, and the writings 
of eminent jurists upon the relation of master and 
slave, and their mutual rights and duties, and the powers 
which governments may exercise over it, have been 
dwelt upon in the argument. 

" But in considering the question before us, it must 
be borne in mind that there is no law of nations stand- 
ing between the people of the United States and their 
goyernment, and interfering with their relation to each 



6 



other. The powers of the goveinment, and the rights 
of the ciiizens under it, are positive and practical regu- 
lations plainly written down. The people of the United 
States have delegated to it certain enumerated powers, 
and forbidden it to exercise others. It has no powpr 
oyer the person or property of a citizen but what the 
citizens of the United States .lave granted. And no 
laws or usages of other nations, or reasoning of states- 
men or jurists upon the relation of master and slave, 
can enlarge the powers of the government, or take from 
the citizen the rights they have reserved. And if the 
Constitution recognizes the right of property of the 
master in a slave, and makes no distinction between 
that description of property and other property owned 
by a citizen, no trihrnial, acting under the authoritij 
of the United States, rmether it he legislative, exe- 
cutive or judicial, has a right to draw such a dis- 
tinction, or deny to it the benefit of the provisions 
and' guarantees ^oh ch have been provided for the 
protection of private property against the encroach, 
ments of the government. 

" Now, as we have already said in an earlier part of 
this opinion, upon a different point, THE RIGHT OF 
PROPERTY IN A SLAVE IS DISTINCTLY AND 
EXPRESSLY AFFIRMED IN THE CONSTITUTION. 
The right of trafific in it, like an ordinary article of 
merchandise and property, wiis guaranteed to the 
citizens of the United Siatts in every State that niiglit 
desire it, for twenty years. And the Gov^rnment in 
express terms is pledged to prottct it in all future time, 
if the slave escapes from his owner. This is done in 
plain words, too plain to be misunderstood. And no 
word can be found in the Constitution which gives 
Congress a greater power over slave property, or 
which entitles property of that kind to less protection 
than property of any other description. The only 
power confeiTed is the powej; coupled with the 
duty, of guarding and piroteciing the owner in his 
rights." 



POINTS ESTABLISHED BY THE DECISION. 

In the 19th vol. of Howard's Reports, pnge 
395, a syllabus of the Dred Scoit decision, 
embracing the points established by the 
Courc, is given in the following words : 

1st. " The Territory thus acquired, i's acquired by the 
people of the United States for their common and equal 
benefit, through their agent and trustee — the Federal 
Government. Congress can exercise no power over the 
rights of persr.ns or property ol a citzen in the Terri- 
tory which is prohibited by the Constitution. The Gov- 
ernment and the citizen, whenever the Territory is 
open to settlement, bc^th enter with their respective 
rights defined and luuited by the Constitution." 

2d. " Congress has no right to proliibit citizens of any 
particular State or States, from taking up their homes 
there, while it permits citizens of other States to do so. 
Nor has it a right to give privileges to one class of cit- 
izens which it refuses to another. The Territory is ac- 
quired forthiir equal and common benefit, and if open 
to any, it must be open to all upon equal and the same 
terms." 

8d. " Evert Citizen has a right to take with him 
INTO the Territory ant artii le of pborbrty which 
THE Constitution ok the United States recognizes 

AS PROPERTY." 

4th. " The Constitution of the United States rec- 
ognizes SLAVB.-l AS property, AND PLEDGES THE FeDIiRAL 

Government to protect it. And Congress cannot ex- 
ercise any more authority over property of that de- 
scription, than it may Constituti.,nally exercise over 
property of any other kind.^' 

5th. " The act of Congress, therefore, prohiliiting a 
citizen of the United States taking with him his slaves 
when he removes to the Territory in question to reside, 

IS AN KXERCISK Or AUTHORITY OVER PRIVATE PROPERTY 
which is not WARRANTED BY THE CONSTITUTION, and the 

removal of the plaintiff, by his owner, to that Territory, 
gave him no title to freedom." 

6th. " While it remains a Territory, Congress may 
legislate over it within the scope of I's constitutional 
powers, in relation to citizens of the United States, and 
may establish a Territorial Government, and the form 
of this local government must be regtiiated by the dis- 



cretion of Congress ; but with powers not exceeding 
those which Congress itself, by the Constitution, is au- 
thorized to exercise over cit zens of the United State*, 
in respect to their rights of property." 

Senator Benjamin, in his speech of May 
22d, 1860, says that this syllabus wa" prepar- 
ed and written out by Judge Taney himself. 



MR. DOUGLAS ENDORSES THE WHOLE DECISION. 

The Dred Scott decision was delivered in 
March, 18.57. Mr. Buchanan had just been in- 
augurated, and the Senate had just adjourned. 
Mr. Douglas took an early occasion to give in 
his adhesion, not only to the decision that 
Dred Scott was not a citizen, and therefore 
could not bring suit in a Circuit Court of the 
United States, but also to the obiter dicium, 
that neither Congress nor a Territorial Legis- 
lature could prohibit slavery in a Territory. 
Having found a Grand Jury in session at Spring- 
field, in the month of June following, an in- 
vitation was piocured from that august body, 
calling for the views of Mr. Douglas on three 
points, to-wit: the Lecompton Convention in 
Kan.-as ; the propost'd invasion of Utah ; and 
the Dred Scott decision. On the last men- 
tioned topic he spoke as follows: 

" The character of Chief- Justice Taney and the asso- 
ciate judges who concurred with him require no eulogy — 
on vindication from me. They are endeared to the people 
of the United States by their eminent public services — 
venerated for their great learning, wisdom and ex- 
perience — and beloved for the spotless purity of their 
characters and their exemplary lives. The poisonous 
shafts of partisan malice will fall liarailessat their feet, 
while their judicial decisions will stand in all future 
time, a proud monument to their greatness, the admira- 
tion of the good and wise, and a rebuke to the partisans 
of faction and lawless violence. 

"The Court did not attempt to avoid responsibility 
by disposing of the case upim technical points without 
touching the merits, nor did they go out of (heir way to 
deiide questions not properly before them and directly 
presented by the vecord. ZtJke honest and conscien- 
tiouii judges, us they are, they met and deeded each 
jjoint as it arose, and faithfullj' performed their whole 
duty, and nothing but their duly, to their country, BY 
DEIERMINING ALL THE QUESTIONS IN THE 
CASE, and nothing but what was essential to the de- 
cision of the Ciise upon its merits." — D-uglas' Spring- 
field Grand Jury Spieech, June Vlth, \&X— as pub- 
lished in the State Register. 



HE DROPS "popular SOVEREIGNTY" 
ALTOGETHER. 

Mr. Douglas has so frequently re-endorsed 
the Dred Scott decisioti thut it is hardly w^orth 
while to notice his subsequent remarks on 
that theme. Let it be observed, however, 
that after the Hlinois election of 18.58, Mr. 
Douglas ceased talking about the right of 
Territorial Legislatures to ex'iude slavery, but 
commenced on an entirely new theme, to-wit: 
'• the right of the people to control slavery as 
property.'' On the 22d of June, 1859, Mr. 
Douglas wrote the following letter to J. B. 
Dorr, Esq., the editor of the Dubuque i?e)-aW, 
which was immedi.itely tehgraphed all over 
the country, as the giouud-work of p inciples- 
on which he would be willing to accept the 
nomination of the Charleston Convention: 



•' Washingtok, June '23d, 1859. 

" Mt Dkar Sir : — I have received your letter inquir- 
ing whether my friends are at liberty to present ray 
name to the Charleston Convention for the Presidential 
nomination. 

"Before this question can finally be determined, it 
will be necessary to understand distinctly upon what 
issues the canvass is to be conducted. If, as I have full 
faith they will, the Democratic party shall determine in 
the Presidential election of ISGO to adhere to the prin- 
ciples embodied in the Compromise measures of 1850, 
and ratified by the people in the Presidential election 
of 185'2, and re-affirmed in the Kansas-Nebraska Act 
of 1854, and incorporated into the Cincinnati platform 
iu 1850, as expounded by Mr. Buchanan in his letter 
accepting the nomination, and approved by the people 
in his election — in that event my friends will be at 
liberty to present my name to the Convention if they see 
proper to do so. If, on the contrary, it shall become 
the policy of the Democratic party, which I cannot anti- 
cipate, to repudiate these, their time-honored principles, 
on which we have achieved so many patriotic triumphs, 
and in lieu of them the Convention shall interpolate into 
the creed of the party such new issues as revival of the 
African slave trade, or a Congressional slave code for 
the territories, or the doctrine that the Constitution of 
the United States ever established or prohibited slavery 
in the territories, beyond the power of the people 
legally to control it as property, — it is due to candor 
to say, that in such an event 1 could not accept the 
nomination if tendered to me. Trusting that this an- 
swer will be deemed sufficiently explicit, I am, very 
respectfully, 

"Your friend, S. A. DOUGLAS. 

"J. B. Dorr, Esq., Dubuque, Iowa." 

Probably the best exposition which has 
been made of this new dogma, is found in Mr. 
Lincoln's speech delivered at Cobtmbus, Ohio, 
in September, 1859, where he noticed the 
change in Mr. Douglas' tone as follows : 

" The Dred Sc.^tt decision expressly gives every citi- 
zen of the United States a right to carry his slaves into 
the United States Territories. And now there was some 
inconsistency in sa.ying that the deci-ion was right, and 
saying, too, that the people of the Territory could law- 
fully drive slavery out again. When all the trash, the 
words, the collateral matter, was cleared away from it ; 
all the chaff was fanned out of it, it was a bare absurd- 
ity : no le.%1 than that nVrlng may he lawfully driven 
away from where it has a laioful right to he. Clear 
it of all the verbiage, and that is the nal;ed truth of his 
proposition — that a thing may be lawfully driven frotn 
the place where it has a lawful right to stay. Well, it 
was because the Judge couldn't help seeing this, that he 
has had so much trouble with it ; and what I want to 
ask yom' especial attention to, just now, is to remind 
you, if you have not noticed the fact, that the Judge 
does not any longer say that the people can exclude 
slavery. He does not say so in tlie coijy-right essay ; 
he did not say so in the speech that he made here ; and, 
so far as I know, since his re-election to the Senate, he 
has never S'id, as he did at Freeport, that the people 
of the Territories can exclude slavery. He desires that 
you, who wisii the Territories to remain free, should 
believe that he stands by that position, but he does not 
say it himself. lie escapes to some extent the absurd 
position X have stated, by changing his language en- 
tirely. What he says now is something different in lan- 
guage, and we will consider whether it is not different in 
sense too. It is now that the Dred Scott decison, or 
rather the Constitution under that decision, does not 
carry slavery into the Territories beyond the power of 
the people of the Territories to control it as other prop- 
erty. He does not say that people can drive it out, but 
they can control it as other property. The language 
is different: we sliould consider whether the sense is 
different. Driving a horse out of this lot is too p^ain a 
proposition to be mistaken alwut : it is putting him on the 
other side of the fence. Or it might be a sort of exclu- 
sion of hiiu from the lot if you were to kill him and let 
the worms devour hiin ; but neither of these things is 
the same as ' controlling him as other property.' That 
would be to feed him, to pamper him, to ride him, to 
use and abuse him, to make the most money out of him 
'as other property; ' but please you, what do the men 



who are in favor of slavery, want more than this? 
What do they really want, other than that slavery, being 
in the Territories, shall be controlled as other property ? " 



HE GOES DIRECTLY FOR SUPREME COURT SOVER- 
EIGNTY AND A TERRITORIAL SLATE CODE. 

On the 23d of June, 1860, the Douglas wing 
of the National Democratic Convention, at 
Baltimore, finished up its business by adopting 
the following resolution as a part of its plat- 
form, — the re-olution having been offered by 
Mr. Wickliffe, of Louisiana, who declared that 
its adoption would give Mr. Douglas 40,000 
votes in tliat St ite : 

" Eesolpad, That it is in accordance with the Cin- 
cinnati platform, that during the existence of Territorial 
Governments, the measure of restriction, whatever it 
may be, imposed by the Federal Constitution on the 
power of the Territorial Legislature over the subject of 
the domestic relations, as the same has heen or shall 
hereafter be decided hy the Supreme Court of the 
United States, should be respected by all good citizens, 
and enforced with promptness and fidelity hy every 
branch of the General Government." 

In his letter accepting the nomination, Mr. 
Douglas gave his particular attention to the 
Wickliffe slave-code resolution, remarking 
UI30II it as follows : 

" Upon a careful examination of the platform of 
principles adopted at Charleston, and re-affirmed at 
Baltimore, with an additional resolution whch is ia 
perfect harmony with the others, I find it to be a faith- 
ful' embodiment of the time-honored principles of the 
Democratic party, as the same were proclaimed and 
understood by all parties in the Presidential contests 
of 1S4S, 1852 and 1856." 

Thus has squatter sovereignty at last bees 
completely squatted out ! 



HE BELIEVES THAT THE RIGHTS OP THE PEOPLE 
OF THE TERRITORIES ARE "HELD IN ABEYANCE." 

On the 12th of March, 1856, Mr. Douglas 
submitted his famous report, accompanying 
a bill for the admission of Kansas into the 
Union as a State, commonly known as the 
" Toombs Bill." Senator Chase's amendment 
to the Nebraska Bill, authorizing the people 
to exclude slavery while in a territorial condi- 
tion, hiving been voted down, and the right 
of a Territorial Legislature to prohibit slavery 
having thus been denied, it became important 
to know whether, in Mr. Douglas' opinion, the 
people can in any other way exclude slavery 
prior to the formation of a State Constitution. 
On this point Mr. Douglas is very explicit in 
denying the right. In the report here referred 
to he says : 

" Without deeming it necessary to express any opin- 
ion on this occasion, in reference to that [the Rhode 
Island] controversy, it is evident that the principles 
upon which it was conducted are not invulved in the 
revolutionary struggle now going on in Kansas ; for 

THE REASON THAT THE .«OVEUEinNTT OF A TERKITOUY RE- 
MAINS IS ABEYANCE SUSPENDED IN THE 
UNITED STATES, IN TRUST FOR THE PEOPLE, 
UNTIL THEY SHALL BE ADMITTED INTO THE 
UNION AS A STATE."— [Douglas' Report on Kansas 
Affiairs, March 12, 1856, page 39.] 

Tills remarkable st.itement, taken by itself, 
would seem to be an open avowal of the Re- 
publican doetrine that Congress is the right- 



ful guardian of the Territories until they are 
prepared for admission into the Union as 
States, but taken with the context, it is no 
less than a foreshadowing of the Dred Scott 
decision. In other words, it denies that Spe- 
cies of " sovereignty " to the Territories 
which authorizes them to excbide slavery, and 
holds them on this point rigidly " subject to 
the Constiiution of the United States," as in- 
terpreted by the Supreme Court. It is con- 
clusive, however, of one thing, to-wit, that 
"<Ae sovereignty of a Territory remains in abey- 
ance" — that the people cannot, do the things 
which Mr. Douglas himself prochiimed they 
might do — that they cannot do those things 
either through a Territorial I.egislntute or by 
Mass Convention, for the reason that their 
sovereignty is " suspended in the United 
States, in trust for the people, until they 

SHALL BE ADMITTED INTO THE UNION AS A 
STATE." 



JECTTON THOSE WHO RESIST THEM, AND TO 
PUNISH REBELLION AND TREASUN. I am glad 
that a defiant spirit is exhibited here : we accept the 
\s^a(t."—Congre>iiional Globe, part 1, 1855-56, paj^e 



HE DEFENDS THE BORDER RUFFIANS OF MISSOURI. 

In the same report, on page 9 thereof, Mr. 
Douglas defended the Border Ruffian invaders 
of Kansas, as follows : 

" The natural consequence was that immediate steps 
were taken by the people of the western counties of 
Missouri to stimulate, organize and carry into effect a 
system of emigration, similar to that of the Massachu- 
setts Emigrant Aid Company, for the avowed purpose 
of counteracting the effects and protecting themselves 
and their domes' ic institutions from the consequences nf 
that company's operations. The material dilTerence in 
the character of the two rival and conflicting movements 
consists in the fact that the one had its origin in an 
aggressive: and the other in a DEFENSIVE 
■policy.'''' 



HE THINKS SENATOR SUMNER SHOULD BE 
" KICKED LIKE A DOG." 

On the 20th day of May, 1856, Mr. Douglas 
indulged in the following language, in reply 
to Senator Sumner — the day on which he was 
bludgeoned by Preston S. Brooks : 

"It is his object to provoke some of us to KICK 
HIM AS WE WOULD A DOG ! A hundred times has 
he called the Nebraska Bill a swindle— an act of in- 
famy, and each time went on to illustrate thecmplicity 
of each man who voted for it, in perpetrating the 
crime. * * * jj^^y ^^j.g jjg approach one of 
these gentlemen, to give him his hand, alter that act? 
If he felt the courtesies between men, he would not do 
it. He would deserve to have himself SPIT IN THE 
FACE for doing so."~jip2yendixto the Coriareimiwuxl 
Globe, 1855-56, page 545. 



HE DECLARES THE BOGUS LEGISLATURE OF KAN- 
SAS TO HAVE BEEN VALID. 

In the same report, and on page 15 thereof, 
Mr. Douglas asserted the validity of the bogus 
legislature and its acts, as follows : 

"So far as the question involves THE LEGALITY 
OF THE KANSAS LEGISLATURE AND THE VALID- 
ITY OP ITS ACTS, it is entirely 'immaterial whether 
we adopt the reasoning and conclusion of the minority 
or majority reports, for each proves tbat the LEGISLA- 
TURE WAS LEGALLY AND DULY CONSTITUTED. 



HE VINDICATES DATID R. ATCHISON. 

In the same speech, and on the same dav, 
Mr. Douglas proceeded to vindicate David R. 
Atchison, of Missouri, who was then leadino- 
a company of Border Ruffians against Kansas" 
in the following eulogistic terms : 

" The Senator has also made an assault on the late 
President of the Senate— General Atchison— a GENTLii- 

MAN OF AS KIND A NATCRK, OF AS GKNCI.NE AND TRDB A 
HEART AS EVER ANIMATED A HUMAN SOUL. He is impul- 
sive and generous, carrying his good qualities some- 
times to an excess, wiiich induces him to say and do 
many things that would not meet my approval ; but all 
who know him, know him to be a genileman and as 
honest man— true and loyal to the Constitution of his 
country." — ^wpejidja; to the Coiigresnional Globe, 
1855-66, page 046. 



HE SAYS THE PEOPLE OF KANSAS MUST BE 
" SUBDUED." 

In the same report, and on page 40 thereof, 
he advocates the subjection of the people of 
Kansas, in the following words : 

"In this connection, your Committee feel sinceresat- 
isfaction in commending the messages and proclama- 
tions of the President, in which we have the gratifying 
assurance that the supremacy of the laws will be main- 
tained ; that rebelliiiu will be crushed ; * * * tj,at 
the federal and local laws will be vindicated against all 
attempts of organized resistence." 

And again, in his speech of March 12th 
1856: 

" The minority report advocates foreign interference ; 
we advocate self-government and non-interference. 
We are ready to meet the issue, and there will be no 
dodging. We intend to meet it boldly ; TO REQUIRE 
SUBMISSION TO THE LAWS AND TO THE CON- 
STITUTED AUTHORITIES; TO REDrcE TO SUB- 



HE THINKS SENATOR TRUMBULL IS A TRATOE, 
AND THAT ALL TRAITORS SHOULD BE HUNG. 

The following extract fiom Mr. Douglas' 
speech on Kansas attairs, in the Senate, March 
20th, 1856, is submitted without comment. 
The language is sufficiently ditect for the com- 
prehension of all fair-minded men : 

" A word or two more on another point and I will 
close. My colleague has made an assault on the Presi- 
dent of the United States for his efforts to vindicate the 
supremacy of the laws, and put down insurrection and 
rebellion in the Territory of Kansas. In my opinion, 
the President of the United States is entitled to the 
thanks of the whole country for the promj)tness and 
energy with which he has met the cri.-is. It was his im- 
perative duty to maintain the supremacy of the laws 
and see that they are faithfully executed. It was his 
duty to suppress rebellion and put down treason. My 
colleague says that it will be necessary to catch the trai- 
tor before the President can hang h'm. My opinion is 
that, from the signs of the times, and in view of all that 
is passing around us, as well as at a distance, there will 
be very little difficulty in arresting the traitors— and 
that, too, WITHOUT GOING ALL THE WAY TO 
KANSAS TO FIND THEM ! [Laughter.] This gov- 
ernment has shown itself the most powerful of any on 
earth in all respects except one. It has shown itself 
equal to foreign war or to domestic defence ; equal to 
any emergency that may arise in the ex. rcise of its high 
functions in all things EXCEPT THE POWER TO 
HANG A TRAITOR! 

I trust in God that the time is not near at hand, and 
that it may never come, when it will be the imperative 
duty of those charged with the faithful execution of the 
laws, to exercise that power. I trust that calmer and 
wiser counsels .will prevail ; that passion may subside. 



and reason and loyalty return, before the overt act shall 
be committed. I fervently hope that the occasion may 
never arise which shall render it necessary to test the 
power of the Government and the firmness of the exec- 
utive in this respect; but if, unfortunately, that contin- 
gency shall happen ; if treason against the United States 
shall be consummated, far be it from my purpose to ex- 
press the wish that the penalty of the law may not fall 
upon the traitor's he^d ! "—Afpendix to the Congres- 
sional Globe, 1855-56, page 28S. 



HE ENDEAVORS TO BRING KANSAS INTO THE UNION 
WITHOUT HAVING HER CONSTITUTION SUB- 
MITTED TO THE PEOPLE. 

On the 25th of June, 1856, while the bill 
for the admission of Kansas was pending in 
the Senate, Mr. Toombs, of Georgia, intro- 
duced an amendment, which was ordered to 
be printed, and, with the original bill and 
other amendments, recommitted to the Com- 
mittee on Territories, of which Mr. Douglas 
was Chairman. This amendment of Mr. 
Toombs, printed by order of the Senate pro- 
vided for the appointment of commissioneis 
who were to take a census of Kansas, divide 
the Territory into election districts, and su- 
perintend the election of delegates to form a 
Constitution, and contains a clause in the 18th 
section requiring the Constitution which should 
be formed to be submitted to the people for 
adoption, as follows : 

" That the following propositions be and the same 
are hereby offered to the said Convention of the people 
of Kansas, when fnrmed, for their free acceptance or 
rejection, which, if accepted by the Convention, and 

RATIFIKD BY THE PEOPLE AT THE ELKCTION FORTHK ADOP- 
TION OF THE coN.sTiTUTioN, Shall be Obligatory on the 
United States, and upon the said State of Kansas, 
etc." 

This amendment of Mr. Toombs was re- 
ferred to the committee of which Mr. Douglas 
was Chairman, and reported back by him on 
the 30th of June, with the words " And rati- 
fied bv the people at the election for the adop- 
tion of the Constitution " siricke>i out. On 
the 9th of December, 1857, Senator Bigler 
explained how the submission clause came to 
be stricken out, as follows: 

" I was present when that subject was discussed by 
Senators, before the bill was introduced, anil the ques- 
tion was raised aud discussed whether the Constitution, 
when formed, should be submitted to a vote of the peo- 
ple. It was held by the most intelligent on the sub- 
ject, that in view of all the cilEculties surrounding that 
Territory, the danger of any experiment at that time of 
a popular vote, it would be better that thbkk should 

BK NO .'iUCH PROVISION IN THE TOOJIBS' BILL ; and it 13 my 

understanding in all th<; intercourse I had, that that 
Convention would make a Constitution and send it here 

WITHOUT SUBMITTING IT TO THE POPULAR VOTE." — Culig. 

Olohe, part 1, 1857-8, page 21 . 
- Referring to same subject again on the 21st 
of December, 1857, Mr. Bigler continued: 

" Nothing was farther from my mind than to allude 
to any social or confidential interview. The meeting 
was not of that character. IndeecK it was semi-official, 
and called to promote the public good. My recollection 
was clear that I left the conference under the im- 
pression that it had been deemed best to adopt measures 
to admit Kansas as a State through the agency of one 
popular election, and that for delegates to the Conven- 
tion. This impression was the stronger, because I 
thought the spirit of the bill infringed upon the doc- 
trine of non-intervention, to which I had great aver- 
sion; but with the hope of accomplishing great good, 
and as no movement had been made in that direciion 
in the Territory, I waived this objection, and concluded 



to support the measure. I have a few items of testimony 
as to tiie correctness of these impressions, and with their 
submission I shall be content. I have before me the 
bill reported by the Senator from' Illinois, on the 7th of 
March, 1856, providing for the admission of Kansas 
as a State, the third section of which reads as follows; 

" ' That the following propositions be, and the same 
are hereby offered to tlie said Convention of the people 
of Kansas, when formed, for their free acceptance or 
rejection : which, if accepted by the Convention and 
ratified by the people at the election for the adoption 
of the Confttitution, shall be obligatory upon the 
United States, and upon the said State of Kansas.' 

" The bill read in place by the Senator from Georgia, 
on the 25th of June, and reft rred to the Committee on 
Territories, contained the same section, word for word. 
Both these bills were under consideration at the confer- 
ence referred to, but, sir, when the Senator from Illi- 
nois reported the Toombs bill to the Senate, with amend- 
ments, the next morning, it did not contain that portion 
of the third section which indicated to the Convention 
that the Constitution should be approved by the people. 
The words 'and ratified by the people at the election 
for the adoption of the v onstitutinn,' had been stricken 
out." — Congresi-ional Globe, part 1, 1857-58, pages 
mand lU. 

Better testimony, however, is that of Toombs 
himself, delivered in the Senate on the 18th 
of March, 1857, as follows: 

"The first twelve sections provided the machinery 
for executing the (Toombs) bill, so that there should be 
IK) dispute as to its fairness. 

'' The othersections, containing only the formal parts 
of the bill, incident to every enabbng act, I cut off 
with my scissors, from a printed bill before me. The 
first twelve sections are in my own writing. In the 
th-rteenth section, under the usual clause, stating that 
the following shall be the fundamental conditions of ad- 
mission, THKRK WERP: WORDS REQUIRING A SUB- 
MISSION OF THE CONSTITUTION TO THE PEO- 
PLE. That I did not observe. 

"Vi'hen the bill came up for consideration between 
some gentlemen of the Committee and myself, there be- 
ing no provision in the bill for a second election ; there 
being no safeguards for such a popular election ; the 
bill being incongruous as to that purpose, I suggested 
the striking out of this clanse. It was done as the re- 
port shows. It having got there by accident, it was 
stricken out at my suggestion, as a matter of course. 
The pri xiples upon which that measure was based, 
were these : — First, that all the legal voters of the Ter- 
ritory should have a fair opportunity, free from force 
or fraud, to elect a Convention, and to make a Consti- 
tution ; AND THEN THAT THEY SHOULD COME 
INTO THE UNION, UNDER THAT CONSTITUTION, 
WITHOUT REFERRING EITHER THE CONSTITU- 
TION TO THE PEOPLE, OR THE QUESTION OP 
ADMISSION AGAIN TO CONGRESS. It was intend- 
ed as an assent to admission, in advance." — Appn- 
dix to the Congressional Globe, 1857-58, pa^e 127. 

Best of all, however, is the testimcny of Mr. 
Douglas, given in the Senate, on the 9th of 
December, 1857, as follows : 

" During the last Congress I reported a biil from the 
Committee on Territories, to authorize the people of 
Kansas to assemble and form a Constitution for them- 
selves. Subsequently the Senator from Georgia (Mr. 
Toombs) brought forward a substitute for my bill, which 
after having bren modified by him anumyselk in con- 
sultation, was passed l)y the Senate."— ftwiff. Globe, 
part 1, 1857-58, page 15. 

Bigler and Toombs having avowed their 
complicity in the swind'e, Mr. Douglas thus 
makes haste to admit his share in it, by say- 
ing that it was modified "by himself and 
Toombs in consultation." What was the mod- 
ification ? Simply this : that Mr. Douglas 
reported the bill back, not only with the sub- 
mission clau.Be stricken out, but with a new 
clause inserted, which reads as follows : 

" AND UNTIL THE COMPLETE EXECUTION OF THIS ACT, 

NO OTHER ELECTION SHALL BE HELD IN SAID 
TERRITORY." 



10 



Can any one fail to comprehend this clear 
and logical chain of evidence ? At the time 
when Douglas and Toombs were at work on 
their precious conspiracy, Kansas was in tl^ 
hands of the Border Ruffians, and entirely at 
their mercy. The Territorial office holders 
were nearly all assassins and outlaws. The 
Federal troops were either assisting or con- 
niving at the Missouri invasion. Under these 
circumstances is there any douhtwhat kind of 
a Constitution would have been made by the 
Buford-Atchison gang who were then ravaging 
Kansas, when they understood perfectly that 
their act would be conclusive of the destinies 
of the Territory, and when Douglas h:id espec- 
ially provided that "until the complete exe- 
cution of the act, no other election shall beheld 
in the Territory .?" 



HE EXDORSKS THE LECOMPTOX CONSTITUTION IN 
ADVANCE. 

On the 12th of June, 1857, Mr. Douglas 
made his " Grand Jury " speech, so-called, at 
Springfield, to which one reference has already 
been made. The following extracts from this 
sppcch are taken from the phonographic report 
published in the Missouri Republican of June 
18th, 1857. The famous Lecompton Conven- 
tion had just been called by the bogus Legis- 
lature, and on this topic he spoke as follows: 

" Kansas is about to speak for herself through her 
flelegatLS as^embl-d in convention to form a constitu- 
tion, preparatory to her admission into the Union on an 
equal footing with the original States. Peace and pros- 
perity now prevail throughout her borders. The law 
under which her delegates are to be elected is believed 
to be just and fair in all its objects and provisions. If 
any po' tion of the inhabitants, anting under the advice 
of political leaders in distant States, shall choose to 
absent themselves from the polls, and withhold their 
votes, with a view of leaving the Free State Democrats 
in a minority, and thus securing a pro-slavery constitu- 
tion in opposition to a majority of the people living 
under it, let the responsibility rest on tliose who, for 
partisan purposes, will sacrifice the princijiles they pro- 
fess to cherish and promote." 



HE SATS THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 
AVAS NOT INTENDED TO INCLUDE " ALL MEN." 

In the same speech, Mr. Douglas ventilated 
his views of the Declaration of Independence, 
as follows : 

"The signers of the Declaration of Independence, 
referred to white man, and to him alone, when they de- 
clared that all men were created ecjual. They were in 
a struggle with Great Britain. The principle they were 
asserting wasiHATA British subject born on a.mericas 

SOIL, WAS EQUAL TO A BRITISH SUBJECT BORN IN ENGLAND 

— thita British subject here, was entitled to all the 
rights, privileges, and immunities, under the I'ritish 
Constiiution that a Briti-h subject in England enjoyed ; 
that their rights were inalienable, and hence, that Par- 
liament, whose power was omnipotent, had no power to 
alienate them." 

It appears thu', that in Mr. Douglas' opinion 
not only the African race, but the Geiman, 
Italian, French, Scandinavian, and, indeed, 
every nation except the English, Irish, Scotch 
and American, are excluded from all part or 
lot in the Declaration of Independence. The 
phrase " all men," does not refer to them. 
They have no business with the Fourth of 



July. It is to be observed that in this matter 
Mr. Douglas has outrun the Dred Scott decis- 
ion itself, which, after quoting the language 
of the Decliration of Indepeidence, says : 

"The general words above C(Uoted would seem to 
embra<e the whole human family, and if they were used 
in a similar instrunierjt at this day, would be so under- 
stood. But it is too clear for dispute, that the enslaved 
African race were not intended to be included, and 
formed no part of the people who framed and adopted 
this declaration." 



HE SAYS SLAVERY IS IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE 
RULES OF CIVILIZATION AND CHRISTIANITY. 

In the same speech Mr. Douglas gave utter- 
ance to the following atrocious sentiments 
on slavery in the abstract : 

"At that day the negro was looked upon as a being 
of an inferior race. All history had proved that in no 
part of the world, or the world's history, had the negro 
ever shown himself capable of self-govtrnment, and it 
was not the intention of the founders of this govern- 
mi-nt to violaie that great law of God which made the 
distinction between the white and the black man. Tliat 
distinction is plain and palpahle, and it has been 
the rule of civilisation and chriMiunity the world 
over, that whenever any man or set of men were in- 
capahle of taking care of themselves, they should 
consent to he (joverned hy those who are capable of 
managing their affairs for them." 

In revising the Missouri Jiejmblica7i's report 
of this speech, for publication in the SlaJe 
Jiu/ister, Mr. Douglas or some di-creet friend 
omitted this obnoxious paragraph. But that 
does not relieve him from the responsibility 
of it, because we find the smie idea, in nearly 
the same langu ige, in his Chicago speech of 
October 23d, 1850, as published in Sheahan's 
Life of Douglas, to-wit : 

"The civilized world have always held that when 
any race of men have shown themselves so degraded 
by ignorance, superstition, cruelty and bHi-barism as to 
be utterly incapable of goveroiiig themselves, they 
must, in the nature of things, be governed by others, 
by such laws as are deemed applicable to their condi- 
tion." — [Sheahan's Life of Douglas, page IS-t ] 

This is popular sovereignty with a venge- 
ance ! 



HE URGES THAT SLAVERY SHOULD LAST FOREVER. 

In his joint debate with Mr. L'ncoln, at 
Qiiincy, Illinois, Mr. Douglas frankly coifessed 
that his "great principle" contemplated that 
slavery should last forever. He said : 

" In this State we have declared that a negro shall 
not he a citizen, and we have also declared that he 
shiiU not be a slave. We had a right to adopt that 
policy. Missoim has just as good a riglitto adopt 
the other policy. I am now speaking of rights under 
the Constiiution, and not of moral or religious rights. 
I do not discuss the morals of the people nf Missouri, 
but let them settle that matter for themselves. 1 hold 
that the peo])le of tlie slaveholding States are civilized 
men as well as ourselves ; that they bear consciences as 
well as we, and that they are accountable to God and 
their posterity, and not to us. It is for them to decide, 
therefore, the moral and religious right of the slavery 
question for themselves within their own limits. I as- 
sert that they had as much light under the C<mstitution 
to adopt the system of policy n hich they have, as we 
had to adopt ours. So it is with every other State in 
this Union. Let each State stand firmly by that great 
Constitutional right, let each State mind its own busi- 
ness and let its neighbors alone, and there will be no 
troulile on this question. If we will stand by that 
principle, then Mr. Lincoln will find that this l{e|)ublic 
CAN KXIST FOREVER DIVIDED INTO FREE ANI> 



11 



SLAVE STATES as our fathers niaie it and the people 
of each Statp have decirled."— [Lincoln and Douglas 
Debates of 185S— page 209.] 

Again ; in his Sedition Law speech, of Jan- 
uary '23d, 1860, he argued for the perpetuity 
of slavery as follows : 

" Mr. Lincoln says : — 'A house divided against itself 
cannot stand. I belifve this Government cannot en- 
dure permanently, half slave and half free.' 

" What is the meaning of that language, unless it is 
that the Union cannot permanently exist, half slave 
and half free— that it must all become one tViing or all 
become the othrr ! The declaration is that the North 
must combine as a sectional party, and carry on the 
agitation so fiercely, up to the very borders of the 
slaveholrting States, that the master dare not sleep at 
night for fear that the robbers, the John Browns, will 
come and set his house on fire, and murder the women 
and children before morning. It is to surround the 
slaveholding States by a cordon of free States, to use 
the language of the Senator ; to hem them in, in order 
that you may smother them out. The Senator avowed, 
in his speech to-day, their object to be to hem in the 
slave Statt-s, in order that slavery may die out. How 
die out? Confine it to its present limits ; let the ratio 
of increase go on by the laws of nature ; and just in 
proportion as the lands in the slaveholding States wear 
out, the negroes increase, and you will soon reach that 
point where the soil will not produce enough to feed the 
slaves ; then hem them in, and let them starve out, let 
them die out by starvation. Tliis is the policy — hem 
them in, and starve them out. Do as the French did 
in Algeria, when the Arabs took to the caverns — smoke 
them out, by making firt s at the mouths of the caverns, 
and keep them burning until they die. The policy is, 
to keep up this agitation along the line; make slave 
property insecure in the border Slates; keep the mas- 
ter constantly in apprehension of assault till he will 
consent to abandon his native country, leaving his 
slaves behind him, or to remove them further South. If 
you can force Kentucky thus to abolish slavery, you 
make Tennessee the border State, and begin the same 
operation upon her. 

" Sir, I confess the object of the legislation I contem- 
plate, \sio put dmcn this outside interference ; it is 
to repress this ' irrepressible conflict ,• ' it is to bring 
the Government back to the true principles of the Con- 
stitution, and let each people in this Union rest secure 
in the enjoyment of domestic tranquility, without ap- 
prehension from nei^'hboring States." — Cong. Glohe, 
1859-60, pages 553, 554. 



HE THINKS SLAVERY IS A MERE QUESTION OP 
DOLLARS AND CENTS. 

Shortly after the Illinois election of 1858, 
Mr. Douglas made a southern tour, stopping at 
St. Louis, Memphis, and New Orleai:S, and 
addressing the people at those places on polit- 
ical topics. He spoke at Memphis, on the 
29th of November, and the following is an 
extract from his speech as repotted phono- 
graphically in the Memphis Avalanche : 

" Whenever a Territory has a climat>, soil and pro- 
ductions making it the interest of the inhabitants to 
encourage slave property they will pass a slave code 
and give it encouragement. Whenever the climate, soil 
and productions preclude the possibility of slavery be- 
ing profitable, they will not permit it. Yoc comb bight 

BACK TO THK PRIiXC PLB OP DOLLARS AND CbNTS. I dO 

not care where the immigration in the southern country 
comes from;— if old Joshua R. Giddings should raise a 
colony in Ohio and settle down in Louisiana, he would 
be the strongest advocate of Slavery in the whole South ; 
he would find, when he got there, his opinion of slavery 
would be very much modified ; he Would find on those 
sugar plantations that it was not a question between 
the white man and the negro but between the negro and 
the crocodile. He would say that between the negro 
and the crocodile he took the side of the negro ; but 
between the negro and the white man, he would go for 
the white man." 



Again, in his speech of February 29tli, 
1860, in the Senate, in the course of his as- 
sault on Senator Seward, he said: 

" We in Illinois tried Slavery while we were a Ter- 
ritory, and found it was not profitable ; and hence we 
turned philanthropists and abnlished it."--(7o-H^/'«S- 
sional Globe, 1859-60 ; page 915. 

And again in the same discussion : 

" But they, (the people of Illinois,) said 'experience 
proves that it is not going to be profitable in this cli- 
mate.' Tliey had no scruples about it. Every one 
of them was nursed by it. His father and his mother 
held slaves. They had no scruple about its being 
right, but they said, 'we cannot make any money by it, 
and as our State runs away oft' north, up to those eter- 
nal snows, perliaps we shall gain population faster if 
we stop Slavery and invite in the Northern population ;' 
and as a matter of political policy, State policy, they 
prohiliited Slavery themselves." — Congressional Globe 
1859-60 ; page 919. 



HE SAYS THE ALMIGHTY HAS REQUIRED THE EX- 
ISTENCE OF SLAVERY ! 

In the Memphis speech, following immedi- 
ately after the extract quotpd above, from 
the Avalanche, comes the following blasphe- 
mous declaration : 

"The Almighty has drawn the line on this continent 

ON ONE SIDE OF WHICH THE SOIL M0ST BB CULTIVATED BY 

SLAVE LABOR. That line did not run on thirty-six de- 
grees and thirty minutes, for thirty-six degrees and 
thirty minutes runs over mountains and through val- 
leys. But this Slave line meanders in the sugar fields 
and plantations of the South — [the remainder of the 
sentence was lost by the confusion around the reporter.] 
An 1 the people living in the different localities and in 
the Territories must determine for themselves whether 
their ' middle bed ' is best adapted for slave or free la- 
bor." 

HE SAYS THAT SLAVES ARE RECOGNIZED AS " PROP- 
ERTY " I!Y THE CONSTITUTION. 

On the 6th of December, 1858, Mr. Douglas 
sp'ke at New Orleans. The following quot- 
ation from his speech is taken from the report 
in the New Orleans Delia : 

"I, in common with the Democracyof Illinois, accept 
the Dred Scott decision of the Supreme Court of the 
United States, in the Dred Scott case, as an authorita- 
tive exposition of the Constitution. Whatever limita- 
tions the Constitution, as expounded by the Courts, 
impose on the authority of a Territorial Legislature, we 
cheerfully recognize and respect in conformity with 
that decision. Slaves are recognised as property, 
and placed on an equal footing with all other prop- 
erty. Hence, the owner of Slaves — the same as the 
owner of any other .species of property— han a right 
to remove to a Territory and carry his property 
with him." 



HE REPEATS THAT SLAVES MAY BE TAKEN TO THE 
TERRITORIES LIKE OTHER PROPERTY. 

Some of the Douglas organs in the North 
have undertaken to say that their champion 
never uttered the words quoted above from 
his New Orleans speech. They will hardly 
deny, however, that he repeated it even more 
offensively in the Senate, on the 23d of Feb- 
ruary, 1859, in a debate with Jeff. Davis, 
when he snid : 

" I do not put Slavery on a different footing from 
other properly. I recognize it as properly under what 
is understood to be the decision of the Supr me Court. 
I argue that the owner of slaves HAS THE SAME 
RIGHT TO REMOVE TO THE TERKITOKIES AND 
CARRY HIS SLAVE PROPERIY WITH UIM AS 



12 



THE OWNER OF ANY OTHER SPECIES OF PROP- 
ERTY, and hold the game, subject to such local laws as 
the Territoral LeRistature may Constitutional y pass, 
and if any person shall feel aggrieved by such local 
legislation, he may appeal to the Supreme Court to test 
the validity of such laws. I recognize slave propertjf 
to be on an equitlity tiith all other properly, and ap- 
ply the same rules to it I will not apply one rule to 
slave property and another to all other kind of proper- 
ty."— Cong-mwon^Z Globe, 1S58-9, part 2, page 1256. 

And again : 

" Slaves, according to that decision, being property, 
stand on an er\\xA footing with all other property. 
THERE IS JUST AS MUCH OBLIGATION ON THE 
PART OP THE TERRITORIAL LEGISLATURE TO 
PROTECT SLAVES AS EVERY OTHEd SPECIES 
OP PROPERI'Y, AS THERE IS TO I'ROIECT HORS- 
ES. CATTLE, DRY GO'DS, LIQUORS, &c."—Conff. 
Globe, same vol., page 125S. 

And again: 

" Hence, under the Constitution, there is no power 
to prevent a Southern man going into the Territories 
with his slaves, more than a Northern man " — Mr. 
Douglas' Memphis Speech, Nov. IWi, 1858, as pub- 
lished in the Avalanche. 



WHAT HE IS OBLIGED TO DO IN THE PREMISES. 

In his letter repl^'ing to Judge Black's criti- 
cism on his Harper's Magazine article, Mr. 
Douglas took pains to tell what he deemed all 
persons obliged to do who hold that slaverj- 
exists in the Territories by virtue of the Con- 
stitution. He said : 

" In that article, without assailing any one, or Impug- 
ning any man's motive, I demonstrated, beyond the 
possibility of cavil or dispute, if slavery exists in the 
Territories by virtue of the Constitution, the conclusion 
is inevitable and irresistible, TH.\T IT IS THE IM- 
PERATIVE DUTY OF CONGRESS TO PASS ALL 
LAWS NECESSARY POR ITS PROTECTION; THAT 
THERE IS AND CAN BE NO EXCEPTION TO THE 
RULE, THAT A RIGHT GUARANTEED BY THE 
CONSTITUTION MUST BE PROTECTED BY LAW 
IN ALL CASES. WHERE LEGISLATION IS ESSEN- 
TIAL TO ITS ENJOYMENT. That all who believe 
that slavery exis s in the Territories by virtue of the 
Constitution are bound by their conscience, and 
oaths of fidelity to the Constitution to support a Con- 
gressional slave code in the Territories ." 

This direct and unequivocal statement of the 
duty of those who believe that slavery exists 
in the Territories by virtue of the Constitution, 
narrows the whole controversy between Doug- 
las and Breckinridge down to a quibble, to 
wit: Is the right to carry slave property into 
the Territories, which Mr. Douglas concedes 
in the extracts quoted above, equivalent to 
the existence of slavery in the Territories by 
virtue of the Constitution ? To use the brief 
and concise ph'ase employed by Mr. Linco'n 
in his Columbus speech, "can a thing be law- 
fully driven away from a place where it has a 
lawful right to be ?" Which faction of the 
Democracy has the advantage of logic and 
truthfulness in this controversy ? 



HE GOES AGAIN FOR SUPREME COURT 
SOVEREIGNTV. 

In his speech of February 23d, 1859, al- 
ready rrferred to, Mr. Douglas again declared 
himself ready to follow the Supreme Court to 
^he crushing out of Popular Sovereignty. 
He said: 



" When the Supreme Court shall decide upon the 
constitutionality of the local [Territorial] laws, I AM 
PREPARED TO ABIDE BY THE DECISION WH.iT- 
EVER IT MAY BE, AND HAVE IT EXECUTED IN 
GOOD FAITH AS WELL AS IN OTHER CASES."— 
Congressional Globe, 1858-59, part 2, page 1259. 

And again, in his speech of May 16th, 1860, 
having read the Tennessee Compromise reso- 
lution offered at the Charleston Convention, 
which was as follows : 

" That all citizens of the United Stateshare an equal 
right to settle with their property in the Territories, and 
that under the decision of the Swpreme Court which 
we recognize as an exposiiion of the Constitution, 
neither their rights of person or property i-an be de- 
stroyed or impairid by Congressional or Ten-itorial leg- 
islation," 

— he proceeded to remark ; 

" The second proposition is, that a right of person or 
property, secured by the Constitution, cannot be taken 
away by act of Congress or of the Territorial Legisla- 
ture. Who ever dreamed that either Congress or a 
Territorial Legislature, or any other legislative body on 
earth could destroy or impair any right guaranteed 
or secured by the Constitution? No man that I know 
of." — Appendix to the Congressional Globe, 1859-60, 
page 316. 



HE TELLS HOW TO CARRY OUT SUPREME COURT 
SOVEREIGNTY. 

In the same speech, (May 16th, I860,) he 
tells how to carry out Supreme Court Sover- 
eignty, as follows: 

" When that case shall arise, and the Court shall 
pronounce its judgment, it will be binding on me, on 
you, sir, and on every good citizen. It must be carried 
out in good faith ; AND ALL THE POWER OF THIS 
GOVERNMENT— THE ARMY, THE NAVY, AND 
THE Mil ITIA— ALL THAT WE HAVE -MUST BE 
EXERTED TO CARRY THE DECISI )N INTO FF- 
FECT IN GOOD FAITH, IF THERE BE RESIST- 
ANCE " — ippen^ija to the Congressional Globe, 
1859-60, page 311. 

HE GOES FOR A SEDITION LKW. 

On the 23d of January, 1860, Mr. Douglas 
made his famous speech in favor of a new 
Sedition Law, for the purpose of " suppres- 
sing the irrepressible conflict'" Senator Ma- 
son had already introduced a resolution for 
the appointment of a select Committee to in- 
vestigate the John Brown raid at Harper's 
Ferry, and to report whether any further leg- 
islation was necessary in the premises. 
Nevertheless, Mr. Douglas introduced the fol- 
lowing additional resolution : 

^'Resolved, That the Committee of the Judiciary be in- 
structed to report a bill for the protection of each State 
and Territory of the LT^nion against invasion by the 
authorities or inliabitants of any other State or Terri- 
tory ; and for the suppression and punishment of con- 
sp racies or combinations in any State or Territory 
with intent to invade, assail, or molest the government, 
inhabitants, property, or institutions of any other 
State or Territory of the Union." 

Upon this resolution he made a speech, on 
the 23d of January, as aforesaid, from which 
the following are consecutive extracts: 

" The question, then, is, what legislation is necessary 
and proper to render this guarantee of ihe Constitution 
effectual? I presume there will be very little differ- 
ence of opinion that it will be necessary to place the 
whole military power of the Government at the disposal 
of the President, under proper guards and res'rictions 
against abuse, to repel and suppress invasion when the 
hostile force shall be actually in the field. But, sir, 
I tliat is not sufficient. Such legislation would not be 



13 



a full compliance with this guarantee of the Constitu- 
tion. The fnimers of that instrument meant more wlien 
they gave that guarantee. Marli the difference in lan- 
guage between the provision for protecting the United 
States against invasion and that for protecting the 
States. When it provided for protecting the United 
States, it saM Congress shall have power to " re- 
pel invasi.in." When it came to make this guarantee 
to the States it changed the language and said tlie United 
States shall ' protect ' each of the States against inva- 
sion. 

" Then, sir, I hold thatit is not only necessary touse 
the military power when the actual case of invasion 
shall occur, but to authorize the judicial department of 
the Government to suppress all conspiracies and com- 
binations in the several Stales with intent to invade a 
State, or molest or disturb its government, its peace, 
its citiz ns, its property, or its institutions. You must 
punish the conspiracy, the combination with intent to 
do the act and then you will suppress it in advance. 
****** * 

" It cannot be said that the time has not yet arrived 
for such legislation. It is only necessary to inquire in- 
to the causes which produced the Harper's Ferry out- 
rage, and ascertain whether those causes are yet in ac- 
tive operation, and then you can determine whether 
there is any ground for apprehension that the invasion 
will be repeattd. Without stopping to adduce evidence 
in detail, I have no hesitation in expressing my firm 
and deliberate conviction that THE HARPER'S FER 
RT CRIME WAS THE NATURAL, LOtilOAL, INEVI- 
TABLE RESULT OF THE DOCTRINES AND TKACH- 
INGS OP THK REPUBLICAN PARTY, AS EXPLAIN- 
ED AND ENFORCED IN THEIR PLATFORM, THEIR 
PARllSAN PRESSES, THEIR PAMPHLKTS AND 
BOOKS, AND ESPECIALLY IN THE SPEECHES OF 
THEIR LEADERS IN AND OUT OF CONGRESS. 
******* 

" And, sir, inasmuch as the Constitution of the United 
States confers upon Congress the power coujiled with 
the duty of protecting each State against external ag- 
gression, and inasmuch as that includes the power of 
suppressing and punishing ccnspiracie.» in one State 
against the institutions, property, people, or govern- 
ment of every other State, I desire to carry out the 
power vigorously . Sir, give us a law as the Consti- 
tution contemplates and authorizes, and I will show 
the Senator from New York that there is a constitu- 
tional mode of repressing the ' irrepressibla cnnflict." 
I will open the piixon. door to allow conspirators 
againxt thepeace of the liepublio and the domestic 
tianqxtility of our States to nelsct their cells wherein 
to drag out a miserahle life, as a punishment for 
their crimes againxt the peace of society ! ! ! 

" Can any man say to us that although this outrage 
has been perpetrated at Harper's Ferry, there is no 
danger of its recurrence? Sir, is not the Republican 
party still embodied, organized, confident of success, 
and detiant in its pretensions? Does it not now hold 
and proclaim the same creed that it did before the in- 
vasion ? It is true that most of its representatives 
here disavow the act of John Brown at Harper's Fer- 
ry. I am glad that they do so ; I am rejoiced that they 
have gone thus far ; but I must be permitted to say to 
them that it is nut sufficient that they disnvow the act, 
unless they also repudiate and denounce the doctrines 
and teachings which pi-oduced the act. Those doctrines 
remain ttie same ; ihose teachings are being poured 
into the minds of men throughout the country by means 
of speeches and pamphlets and books, and through 
parti zan presses. 

" Mr. President, the mode of preserving peace is 
plain. This system of sectional warfare must cease. 
The Constitution has given the power, and all we ask 
of Congress is to irive the means, and we, BY INDICT- 
MENT AND CONVICTIONS IN THE FEDERAL 
COURTS OF OUR SMERAL STATES, WILL M^KE 
SUCH EXAMPLES OF THE LEADERS OF THESE 
CONSPIRATORS AS WILL STRIKE TERROR INTO 
THE HEARTS OF THE OTHERS, AND THERE 
WILL BE AN END OF THIS CRUSADE."— C'cmj^res- 
monal Globe, 1859-60, pa eres 562, 553. 

The following is an extract from the old 
Sedition Law of 1798, which very nearly 
revolutionized the country — utterly ruined 
and destroyed the Federal party which took 
the responsibility of enacting it — and agjtast 



which Thomas Jefferson and his friends ful- 
minated the famous "Resolutions of '9S," 
adopted by the Virginia and Kentucky Legis- 
latures: 

" And be it further enacted. That if any person 
shall write, print, utter or publish, or shall cause or 
procure to be written, uttered or published, or shall 
knowingly or willingly assist or aid in writing, printing, 
uttering, or pubhshing any false, scandalous and ma- 
licious writing or writings, atrainst the Government of 
the United States or either House of the Congress of 
the Ui ited States, or the President, of the United States, 
with intent to defame the said Government, or either 
Hnuse of the Congress, or the said President, or to 
bring them, or either of them into contempt or dis- 
repute, or to excite against them, or eitlier or any 
of them, the hatred of the good people of the United 
States, or to stir up sedition within the United States ; 
or to excite any unlawful combinations therein, for op- 
posing or resisting any law of the United states, or any 
act of the President of the United Siates, done in pur- 
suance of any such law, or of the powers in him vested 
by the Constitution of the United States; then such 
person being thereof convicted before any court of the 
United States having jurisdiction therein, shall be pun- 
ished by a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars, and 
by imprisonment not exceeding two years." 

The difference between this S^-ditioa Law 
and the one advocated by Mr. Douglas is, 
that the former sought to punish the esprea- 
sion of opinions against the constituted au- 
thorities of the United States, while the 
latter seeks to punish the expression of opin- 
ions against human slavery. Under Douglas' 
propi^sed law, Washington, JeSerson, Frank- 
lin, Madison, and nearly all the founders of 
the Republic, would be liable, if still living, 
to " indictments and convictions in our Fed- 
eral courts." 



THE UPSHOT OF JOHN BROWN S INVASION OF 
VIRGINIA. 

This is a proper place to inquire what state 
of facts existed, calling for Mi. Douglas' furi- 
ous onslaught on the people of the Kor'h, and 
his malignant proposition to " open the prison 
doors and allow conspirators again-i the tran- 
quility of States to select cells wherein to drag 
out a mi-erable life." The Select Committee 
of the Senate, appointed to investigate the 
Harper's Ferry affair, consisting of Messrs. 
Mason, Davis, Fitch, Collamer and Doolittle, 
commenced their labors on the 16th of De- 
cember, 1859, and continued their sessions 
until the 14th of June, 1860. During this 
time they examined thirty-two witnesses from 
v.irious parts of the country, and it is presum- 
ed th--y arrived at the facis of the case ag 
nearly as it was possible to rtach them. On 
the loth of June, the roajority of the Commit- 
tee made a report in which they say : 

" The Committee, after much consideration, are not 
prepared to suggest any legidatio7i which, in their 
opinion, would be adequate to prevent like occurrences 
in the future. The only provisions in the Constitution 
of the United States which would seem to import any 
authority in the Government of the Uniied States to 
interfere on occasions affecting the peace or safety of 
the States are found in the Sih section of the 1st article, 
amongst the powers of Congress, to pruvide for calling 
for Militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress 
insurrections and repel invasions ; and in the 4th sec- 
tion of the 4th article in the following words: 'The 
United States shall guarantee to every State in this 
Union a reimblican form of government, and shall pro- 
tect each of them against iuvasion, and on the applica- 



'^- • 



14 



tion of the legislature or of the executive (when the 
legislature cannot be convened,) against domestic vio- 
lence.' The 'invasion' here spoken of would seem to 
import an invasion by the public force of a foreign 
power, or (f not so limited and equally referable to an 
invasion of one State by another,) still it would seen 
that public force, or force exercised under the sanction 
of acknowledged political power, is there meant. 
The invasion (to call it so) by Brown and his' follow- 
er.5 at Harper's Ferry was in no sense of that character. 
IT WAS SIMPLY THE ACT OF LAWLESS RUF- 
FIANS UNDER THE SANCTION OF NO PUBLIC OR 
POLITICAL POWER," eic.—BeportoJ Select Oom- 
onittee of the Senate on the Hafper^s Ferry affair ; 
page, 18. 

This rpport is signed " J. M. Mason, Ohair- 
man, Jefferson Davis, G. N. Fitch." It ought 
to be good authority on the question whether 
any laws are required " to punish conspiracies 
and combinations loith intent to do the act," 
as also on the other question whether the Re- 
publican party is responsible for John Brown's 
raid. 

MR. DOUGLAS JUSTIFIES DISUNION. 

In the Sedition Law speech, above referred 
to, Mr. Douglas went so far as to justify the 
crime of disunion unless Congress should en- 
act the sort of law which he there proposed. 
As he is now charging disunion quite furious- 
ly against the Breckinridge faction, it is pro- 
per to show that less than one year ago he 
was encouraging the same thing himself. He 
said : 

" If the people of this country shall settle down into 
the conviction that there is no power in the Federal 
G-overnment to protect each, and every State from vio- 
lence, from aggression, from invasion, THEY WILL 
DEMAND THAT THE COliD BE SEVERED and the 
weapons be restored to thnir hands with wliicli thev 
may defend themselves. 'I HIS INQUIRY INVOLVES 
THE QUESTION OF THE PERPETUITY OF THE 
Vi:ilON."—Co7igressional Globe, 1859-60; page 551. 



JEFF. DAVIS REPUDIATES THE SEDITION LAW. 

Two days after the Sedition law speech. 
Senator Davis took the floor and repudiated 
the whole thing as an alarming encroachment 
on the rights of the people. He said : 

"I welcome, sir, the apprehensions of the President 
of the United States, and never would I enact a law 
which would clothe the executive with the power to call 
out the militia, to bring the armv and the navy TO IN- 
VADE A STATE TO DISCOVER WHO WITHIN 
THAT STATE HAD IN HIS BREAST THE PURPOSk; 
AT SOME FUTURE DAY TO COMMIT CRIME. If 
there be unlawful, treasonable organizations within a 
State, it belongs to the State sovereignty to inquire and 
to punish the offender. ****** 
It is proper for me, Mr. President, to say that it is in 
no feeling of pai'tisan warfare between me and the Sen- 
ator and the President, if any such exist, that I have 
made the explanation. It is the deep interest I feel 
for the preservation of sound principles and the restric- 
tion of the Federal Government from .striding over the 
sovereignties of the States to usurp such centralizing 
power, under the promptings of a momentary expedi- 
ency, as would destroy the great charter of our 1 ber- 
ty, and reduce the people to that condition from which 
they rose— THE SUBJECTS OF A GOVERNMENT 
NOT WITHIN THEIR CONTROL."— C'o^tr. Globe, 
1859-60 ; pages 589, 590. 

MR. 'DOUGLAS TELLS WHAT " POPULAR SOVER- 
EIGNTY " HAS DONE. 

It will be admitted that Mr. Doughs is a ms l..\st fling at the people of Kansas. 
good judge of what his dogma of " Popular The Hon. John Hickman, in his late speech 
Sovereignty " has accomplished during the | in Concert Hall, Philadelphia, after a scathing 



I past six years. Therefore, we let him tell the 
result in his own words, quoting from his 
speech in the Senate on the 16th of May, 
1860, as printed in the Appendix to the Con- 
gressional Globe : 

"But we are told that the necessary result of this 
doctrine of non-intervention, which gentlemen, by way 
of throwing ridicule upon, call squatter sovereignty, ia 
to deprive the South of all participation in what rhey 
call common Territories of the United States. Thjt 
was the ground on which the Senator from Mississippi 
(Mr. Davis) predicated his opposition to the compromise 
measures of 1850. He regarded a refusal to repeal the 
Mexican law as equivalent to the Wilmot Proviso ; a 
refusal to recognize by an act of Congress the right to 
carry a slave there as equivalent to the Wilmot Proviso ; 
a retusal to deny to a Territorial Legislature the light 
to exclude slavery as equivalent to an exclusion. He 
believed at that time that this doctrine did amount to 
a denial of southern rights, and he told the people of 
Mississippi so ; but they doubted it. Now, let us see 
how far his predictions and suppositions have been 
verified. I infer that he told the people so, for as he 
makes a charge in his bill of indictment against me, 
that I am hostile to Southern rights, because I gave 
those votes. 

" Now, what has been the result? My views were 
incorporated into the compromise measures of 1S50, 
and his were rejected. Has the South been excluded 
from all the territory acquired from Mexico? What 
says the bill from the House of Representatives now on 
your table, repealing the slave code in New Mexico, es- 
tablished iiy the people themselves? It is part of the 
history of the country, that under the doctrine of non- 
intervention, this doctrine that you delight to call 
squatter sovereignty, the people of New Mexico have 
introduced and protected slavery in the whole of that 
Territory. UNDER THIS DOCTRINE THEY HAVE 
CONVERTED A TRACT OF FREE TERRITORY INTO 
SLAVE TEKRITOKY, MORE THAN FIVE TIMES 
THE SIZE OP THE STATE OF NEW YORK. UN- 
DER THIS DOCTRINE, SLAVERY HAS BEEN EX- 
TENDED FRO.M THE RIO GRANDE TO THE GULP 
OF CALIFORNIA, AND FROM THE LINE OF THE 
REPUBLIC OF MEXICO, NOT ONLY UP TO 36 deg. 
30 min., BUT UP TO 3S deg. GIVING YOU A DE- 
GREE AND A HALF MORE SLAVE TEHRITORY 
THAN YOU EVER CLAIMED. In ISiS and 1849 and 
1850, you only iisked to have the line of .36 deg. 30 min. 
The Nashville Convention fixed that as its ultimatum. 
I offered it in the Senate, in August, 1848, and it was 
adopted here, but rejected in the House of Representa- 
tives. You asked only up to 30 deg. SO min., and 

NON-INTERVENTION H.^S GIVEN TOD SLAVE TERRITORY DP 

TO 38 deg— A DEGREE AND A HALF MORE THAN 
YOU ASKED ; and yet you say that this is a sacrifice 
of Southern rights? 

" These are the fruits of this principle which the 
Senator from Mississippi regards as hostile to the rights 
of the South. Where did you ever get any other fruits 
tliat were more palatable to your taste or refreshing to 
your strength? What other inch of free territory has 
been converted into slave territory on the American 
continent, since the Revolution, except in New Mexico 
and Arizona, under the principle of non-intervention 
affirmed at Charleston. If it be true that this princi- 
ple of nop-intervention has conferred upon you all that 
immense territory ; has protected slavery in that com- 
paratively northern and cold region, where you did not 
expect it to go, cannot you trust the same piinci]de fur- 
ther South when you come to acquire additional terri- 
tory from Mexico? If it be true that this principle of 
non-intervention, has given to slavery, all of New 
Mexico, which was surrounnded on nearly every side 
by free territory, will not the same principle protect 
you in the northern States of Mexico, when they are ac- 
quired, since they are now surrounded by slave terri- 
tory ; are several hundred miles further south ; have 
many degrees of greater heat ; and have a climate and 
soil adapted to southern products ? Are you not sat- 
isfied with these practical re-ults?" — Appendice to 
Cong. Globe, \^b'i-(>0, page Z\i. 



15 



review of Mr. Douglas' many crimes against 
freedom in Kansas, says : " It is gratifying, 
however, to make a single remark in his fa- 
vor ; it is this: that he seems as willing as 
the most ardent of his friends to divert atten- 
tion from this period of his career. I am not 
aware that, in either essay or address he has 
ventured to recur to it; but on the contrary, 
he seems disposed to treat as a blank in his 
life." Mr. Hickman has overlooked Mr. 
Douglas' speech in the Senate on the 29th of 
February last, when he repeated the most of- 
fensive and disreputable thing he ever said 
concerning the civil war in that Territory. 



It was this : 

" Popular sovereignty iu Kansas was stricken down 
by unholy combination in New England to ship men to 
Kansas — rowdies and vagabonds — with the Bible in 
one hand and Sharpe's rifle in the other, TO SHOOT 
DOWN THE PKIENDS OF FREE INSTITUrlONS 
AND SELF GOVERNMKNT. Popular s.>verfignty in 
Kansas was stricken down by the combinations in the 
Northern States to carry elections under jiretence of 
emigrant aid societies. In retaliation, Missouri formed 
aid societies, too ; and she, following your example, 
sent men into Kansas, and then occurred the conflict. 
I condemn both, but I condemn a THonsAND fold 
MORE those that set the example and struck the first 
blow than those who thought they would act on the 
princi|)le ai fighting the devil with his own toeajwns, 
and resorted to the same means that you have em- 
ployed."— Cores'. Glohe, 1859-60, page 916. 



PART III.— MISCELLANEOUS. 



MR. DOUGLAS BELIEVES IN THE HIGHER LAW. 

In his Chicago speech of October 23d, 1850, 
in defense of the Fugitive Slave Law, Mr. 
Douglas said: 

" The general proposition that there is a law PARA- 
MOUNT TO ALL HUMANENACtMENTS— the law of 
the Supreme Ruler of the Universe— 1 TRUST THAT 
NO CIVILIZ 1) AND CHRISTIAN PEOPI-E IS PRE- 
PARED TO QUESTION, MUCH LESS DENY. _ We 
should recognize, respect and revere the the Divine 
\a,vf ."—Sheahaii's Life of Douglas ; j^age 184. 

It is true that Mr. Douglas went on to argue 
that the Divine law does not prescribe the 
forms of human government, but all his sub- 
sequent logic is not a match for the plain, une- 
quivocal statement here giveit that " there is 
a law paramount to all human enactments ! " 



HE don't care whether slavery IS VOTED 
DOWiV OR VOTED UP. 

It was with this epigrammatic phrase that 
Mr. Douglas signalized his objection to the 
Lecompton Constitution on the 9th of Decem- 
ber, 1857, when he spjke as follows: 

"But I am told on all sides; 'oh! just wait; the 
pro-slavery clause will be voted down.' That does not 
obviate any of my obligations ; it does not diminish 
any of them. You have no more right to force a Free 
State Constitution on Kansas than a Slave State Con- 
stitution. If Kansas wants a Slave State Constitution, 
she has a right to it ; if she wants a Free State Con- 
stitution, she has a right to it. It is none of my busi- 
ness which way the slavery clause is decided. I CARE 
NOT WHETHER IT IS VOTtD DOWN OR VOTED 
UP." — Cong. Globe, 1857-58, part 1, ^Jag'e 18. 

It is immaterial whether we take this phrase 
as an expression of Mr. Douglas' opinions on 
the abstract question of slavery, or as a defini- 
tion of the views which he seeks to impress 
upon his followers as a leader of the Demo- 
cratic party, and to incorporate in the legisla- 
tion of the country as a Senator and a states- 
man. Yet if there is any moral difference be- 
tween the two ideas, it is, doubtless, in favor 
of the former. As an individual he may 
deem slavery as good a thing as freedom, 
without exercising any wide-spread influence 
for harm. As a Senator, he cannot vote that 
slavery is as good as fre dom, without stamp- 
ing the legislation of his country with that 
baleful idea. As the leader of a numerou-^ par- 
ty, be cannot instil in his followers the princi- 
ple that they ought not to care whether sla- 
very be voted down or voted up, without 



inoculating large numbers of them with the 
belief that the one is as good, as moral, as 
beneficial as the other. 



HE THINKS " CONGRESS " MUST DETERMINE WHEN 

POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY SHALL BEGIN IN A 

TERRITORY. 

In his copyright essay published in Har- 
per's Magazine last year, Mr. Douglas substan- 
tially admits the Republican doctrine con- 
cerning the relation of Congress to the 
Teriitories, by saying: 

"It, [sovereignty] can only be exercised WHERE 
THERE ARE INHABITANTS SUFFICIENT TO CON- 
STITUTE A GOVERNMENT, AND CAPABLE OF 
PERFORMING ITS VARIOUS FUNCTIONS AND 
liUTIES— .4 FACT TO BE ASCERTAINED AND 
DETERMINED BY CONGRESS. WHETHER 
THE NUMBER SHALL BE FIXED AT TEN, FIF- 
TEC;N OR TWENTY THOUSAND INHABITANTS, 
DOES NOT AFFECT THE PRL\CIPLE." 

If the number may be fi.xed at ten, fifteen 
or twenty thousand inhabitant?, it may of 
course be fixed at one hundred thousand or 
any other number suflacieut to consdtute a 
State. 

HE IS UTTERLY OPPOSED TO " SQUATTER SOV- 
EREIGNTY." 

In a colloquy with Senators Davis and 
Gwin, in the Senate, oi the 17 th of May, 1860, 
Mr. Douglas utterly repudiated " squatter sov- 
ereignty," in the following words : 

" Regarding Squatter Sovereignty as a nickname 
invented by the Senator and those with whom he acts, 
which I have never recogniztd, I must leave him to de- 
fine the meaning of his own term. I have denounced 
Squatter Sovereignty when you find it settitig up a 
government in violation of law, as you do nowat Pike's 
Peak. I denounced it this year. When you find an 
unauthorized Legislature, in violation of law, setting 
up a government without sanction of Congress or Court, 
that is Squatter Sovereignty which I oppose. There 
is the case of Dakotah, where you have left a 
whole people without any law or Territorial organiza- 
tion, with no mode of appeal from Squatter Courts to 
tlie United States Courts to correct their d-cisions — 
that is Squatter Sovereignty in violation of the Consti- 
tution and laws of the United States. There is a simi- 
lar government set up over a part of California and a 
part of the Territory of Utah, called Nevada. 

" It has a delegate here, claiming to represent it. I 
have denounced that as unlawful. I am opposed to all 
such Squatter Sovereignty. If that is wh it the Sena- 
tor referred to, I am against it. All I say is, the peo- 
ple of a Territory, when they hive become organized 
under the Constitution and laws, have legislative power 
over all rightful subjects of legislation, consistent with 



16 



the Constitution of the United States. That is the lan- 
guage of the law, and if they exercise legislative powers 
on any sul'ject inconsistent with the Constitution of the 
United Siates, the Courts, to whom appeal may betaken 
under the laws, will correct their eiTors. That is all. 
—Cong. Globe, 1869-6U; page, 2147. 



HH REPUDIATES TERRITORIAL SOVEREIGNTY, ALSO. 

The fol'owing extract from Mr. Douglas' 
letter in reply to Judge Black's criticism on 
his Harper's Magazine Essay, puts everything 
at sixes and sevens again as regards his views 
of the sovereignty which belongs to the people 
of a Territory. In that letter he says: 

" I have never said or thought that our Territories 
were sovereign polilical communities, or even limited 
sovereignties like the States of this Union." 

And again, in a colloquy with Mr. Clay, of 
Alabama, in the Senate, February 23d, 1859, 
he was still more explicit in denying sover- 
eignty to the Territories : 

" I will answer the Senator's question. First — I do 
not hold that squatter sovereignty is superl.r to the 
Constitution. I HOLD THAT NO SUCH THING AS 
SOVEREIGN POWKR ATTACHES TO A TERRI- 
TORY WHILE A TERRITORY. 1 hold that a Terri- 
tory possesses whatever pnwer it derives from the Con- 
stitution, under the organic act, and no more. I hold 
that ALL the power that a Territorial Legislature posses- 
ses is derived from thf Constiiution and lis amendments, 
iMider the net of Congrens ; and because I held that, I 
denied last year that the people of a Territory, without 
the consent of Congress, could assemble at Lecompton 
and create an organic law for that people. I denied the 
validity of your Lecomjiton Constitution, for the reason 
that constitutions can only be made by sovereign power; 
and because the Territory was not a sovereignty, that 
was not a constitution but a petition." — Cong. Globe, 
1S5S-59, part 2, page 1246. 

It will be noticed, also, that in these re- 
marks, Mr. Douglas supplied a link hitherto 
missing in the chiin wifiich binds him to the 
Dred Kcott decition. It is this : the Supreme 
Court say that whereas Congress cannot pro- 
hibit slavery in the Territory, it cannot dele- 
gate such power to a Territorial Legislature. 
Mr. Douglas steps in at this point and says 
that ALL the powers vested in a Territory are 
derived through the act of Congress organiz- 
ing it. They have no powers that are not so 
derived. Hence if Congress cannot prohibit 
slavery in a Territory, neither can the people 
of the Territory do so by any means whatever. 

UNFRIENDLY LEGISLATION. 

The doctrine of " unfriendly legislation " 
against the rights of property, as declared by 
the Dred Scott decision, was promulgated by 
Mr. Douglas in his debate with Mr. Lincoln, 
at Freeport, on the 23 th of August, 1858, as 
follows : 

The next question propounded to me by Mr. Lin- 
coln is, can the people of a Territory in any lawful 
way, against the wishes of any citizen of the United 
States, exclude slavery from their limits prior to the 
formation of a Constitution? I answer emphatically, 
as Mr. Lincoln has heard me answer a hundred times 
Irom every stump in Illinois, that in my opinion the 
the people of a Territory can, by lawful means, exclude 
slavery from their limits prior to tlie formation of a 
State Constitution. Mr. Litcoln knew that I had an- 
swered that question over and over again. He heard 
me argue the Nebraska bill on that principle all over 
the State in 1854, in 1865, and in 1866, and he has no 
excuse for pretending to be in doubt as to my position 
on that question. IT lyiATTERS NOT WHAT WAY 
THK SUPREME COURT MA^ HEREAFTER DE- 
CIDE AS TO THE ABSTRACT QUESTION WHE- 



THER IT MAY OR MAY NOT GO INTO A TERRI- 
TORY UNDER THE CON.'^TITUTION, THE PEOPLE 
HAVE THE LAWFUL MEAN TO INTRODUCE IT 
OR EXCLUDE IT AS THEY PLKASE, for the reason 
that slavery cannot exist a day oi an hour anywhere, un- 
less it is supported by police regulations. Those police 
regulations can only be established by the local legis- 
lature, and if the people are opposed to slavery they 
will elect representatives to that body who will by 
urjfriendly legislation effectually prevent the introduc- 
tion of it into their midst. If, on the contrary, they 
are for it, their legislation will favor its extension. 
Hence, NO MATTER WHAT THE DECISION OF 
THE SUPREME COURT MAY BE on that abstract 
question, still the right of the people to make a slave 
Territory or a free 'J erritory is perfect and complete 
under the Nebraska bill. I hope Mr. Lincoln deems 
my answer satisfactory on tha.fpuiDt."— Lincoln and 
Douglas Debates, page 95. 

Let the reader contrast these utterances 
with the WicklifFe resolution, adopted by the 
Douglas National Convention, and Mr. Doug- 
las' letter of acceptance, (page 7, ante). 



A QUESTION WHICH HE WILL NOT ANSWER. 

In his colloquy with Mr. Davis, in the Sen- 
ate, Miy 17th, 1860, Mr Douglus refused to 
answer the question whether he would or 
would not sign a bill to protect slave proper- 
ty in the Territories, if he were President of 
the United States. This is a question which 
has an immediate and special significance, 
and one which each voter has a right to put to 
Mr. Douglas and every other candidate for 
President or Vice-Piesident. Fortunately we 
have Mr. Douglas' reply, or his refusal to 
reply on record. The colloquy was as follows : 

" Mr. Davis — If it will not erabarass the Senator, I 
would ask him, if, as Chief Executive of the United 
States, he would sign a bill to protect slave property In 
State, Territory or District of Columbia — an act of Con- 
gress. 

•• Mr. Douglas — It will be time enough for me or any 
other man to sny what bills he will sign when he is in a 
position to execute the power. 

" Mr. Davis — I shall not ask you a question further 
than you wish to answer— certainly not. 

Mr. Douglas — The Senator can ask all the questions 
he pleases, and I shall answer them when 1 please ; but 
I was going to say that I do not recognize the right to 
catechise me in this way. The Senator has no right to 
do it after sneeving at my pretensions to the place which 
he assumes that I desire to occupy. 

" Mr. Davis — I grant the Senator the right not to an- 
swer the question, though it seemed to me to be leading 
very directly up to an exact understanding between us 
as to what he meant by non-intervention. I, however, 
will not press that, or any other question, against his 
wishes." — Cong. Globe, 1859-60; page, 2147. 



MR. DOUGLAS' VIEWS OF NATIONAL PARTIES AND 
NATIONAL CREEDS. 

Since Mr. Herschel V. Johnson has been 
hooted down by a mob in his own State, and 
since the creed of the Douglas paity has been 
tubooed in at least one-thiid of the States of 
Union, it vrill be interesting to all persons to 
learn the views of nationality enteitaiiied by 
Mr. Douglas himself; and it is difficult to find 
a broader joke with which to conclude thia 
pleasing compilation. We close by quoting 
from his speech at Cincinnati, on the 9th of 
September, 1859, as reported in the New York 
Times of Sept. 12th: 

"ANY POLITICAL CREED IS RADICALLY 
WRONG WHICH CANNOT BE PROCLAIMED IN 
THE SAME IORM WHEREVER THE AMElilCAN 
FLAG WAVES OR THE AMfiKICAN CONSTITU- 
TION RULES." 



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